COMMON WORDS 



WITH 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS, 



AKCHDEACON" SMITH, M.A., 



VICAR OF ERITH. 




LONDON: 

BELL AND DALDY, 186, FLEET STREET, 

1865. 





COMMON WOEDS WITH CURIOUS 
DERIVATIONS. 

BANDON. Latin a, from, and 
bannum or bandum, a proclama- 
tion, which appears in the words 
banns, ban, and banish. So abandonment 
means, according to its etymology, the 
placing in a condition of outlawry ; thence, 
to place beyond the bounds of personal 
protection and privilege. From this it has 
descended lower to the simple sense of leav- 
ing ; the act, as it were, surviving, and the 
character, or motive of it, being lost sight of. 
Hence " abandonment" has a favourable, 
unfavourable, or indifferent force, according 
as natural laws or moral obligations are 
observed, neglected, violated, or do not enter 
into the question. 

B 



2 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Abash, is the same word as abase. French 
abaisser, from the Greek (iaa-is, from (Zotivsiv, 
to go; that on which a thing goes or 
stands, its base. The modification serves to 
mark the distinction of meaning between the 
two words/' to abash " being as it were to abase 
a person in his own estimation, or feeling. 

Abate, was originally a word of stronger 
meaning than at present. It is now seldom 
used but as an intransitive verb, " the storm 
abates," except in such phrases as " to abate 
a nuisance;" but its origin is the French 
abattre, from the Low Latin battuere, to 
batter or beat down. 

Compare the wholesale destruction of 
game called a battue. 

Abet. It is apparently the unfavourable sense 
in which this word is at present used, as 
" to abet in a crime," that has sanctioned 
Webster's derivation of the word from abeter, 
to lure or deceive. Compare the English 
bait, as if it were luring on into wrong. 
But, inasmuch as the word meant at the first 



CUKIOUS DEKIVATIONS. 3 

open and fair support, Skinner's derivation 
given by Richardson seems far preferable, 
that it is from the Saxon betan, to improve 
or be better. When one is said to beat 
another, for instance, in a game of skill, this 
is not a metaphor taken from cudgelling, but 
means to show himself superior, or, as it is 
said, the better player. So " to abet " is to 
improve the condition of another by one's 
own countenance and support, to better him. 

Abeyance. A state of suspension with the 
expectation or probability of revival, as a 
title of nobility is said sometimes to be in 
abeyance. 

The root is the French bayer, to gape or 
stand open-mouthed, as a wild beast at 
bay. Abeyance is, therefore, a state of gaping 
expectation ; and the word has been trans- 
ferred from the person waiting to the thing 
waited for. 

Able. The origin of this word appears more 
plainly in the French habile, from the Latin 
habilis, from habere, to have ; handy, having 



4 COMMON WORDS WITH 

one's self well, or mentally possessed of 
resources. 

Abolish. Abolere, Latin, from oAAup, I de- 
stroy. Others give abolescere, from olescere, 
to grow ; so that abolish on that supposition 
has taken to itself the active sense of abo- 
lescere, to destroy, instead of to perish. 

Abominable. Ab and omen ; to be dis- 
carded and abhorred as a foul thing of evil 
omen. Hence, generally, hateful. 

Abridge, has often suggested the idea of a 
bridge, meaning, in some way, a short cut or 
easy road. It is, however, nothing more 
than the word abbreviate ; which, instead of 
the Latin abbreviare, from brevis, short, has 
come to us indirectly through the French 
abreger. 

This view does not seem to' be affected 
even if we connect it more immediately with 
the German abbrechen, to break off, for we 
are still linked with the Latin brevis, and the 
Greek j3/>aj£us, through the German brechen, 
and the English break. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 5 

Abrogate. To cancel, or do away with. 
From the Latin abrogare ; rogare is to ask: 
rogare legem, to propose a law, that is, to ask 
the people, according to ancient Eoman 
custom, for their votes in its favour. The 
contrary process was expressed by the word 
abrogare, that is, to ask their votes for abo- 
lishing it ; whence " abrogate." 

Abstemious, from ab, and temetum, a strong 
mixed drink, would signify, in the first 
instance, abstinence, especially from the use, 
or excess, of intoxicating liquors; but has 
been extended, by usage, to strict tempe- 
rance in all ways. 

Absurd. Ab, and surdus, deaf, and also 
dissonant, or out of tune. 

Taken metaphorically, it expresses that 
which is unattuned to truth, and discordant 
from the proprieties of things. 

Accommodate. Commodum, advantage or 
convenience. Con, and modus, a limit. To 
accommodate a person is to do any anything 



b COMMON WORDS WITH 

which shall make the limits of his circum- 
stances commensurate with those of his 
requirements. 

The same idea of co-adjustment holds 
good when things and not persons are the 
subjects of accommodation, as when we speak 
of accommodating differences, or accommo- 
dating an event to a prediction. 

Accompany. See Companion. 

Accord (verb), to grant freely, and from the 
heart. Cor, cordis, the heart. Apparent 
analogies, as concordia, and the musical term 
concord, mislead into the association of chord, 
i. e. a cord or musical note or harmony, which 
has nothing to do with it. 

The same holds good of the noun "accord;" 
" with one accord," that is, with one mind 
or desire in common, not harmoniously, 
though the idea of musical harmony very 
naturally insinuates itself. 

Accost. Ad costam, to come to the side of a 
person with the presumed intention of 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 7 

addressing him. Hence to accost has come 
to mean to address even from a distance. 

Account. Ad, and computare, to compute. 
So " count " is an abbreviated form of com- 
pute, which accounts for the spelling of the 
word with a p in the old English, still some- 
times kept up, as a comptroller. This, how- 
ever, is erroneous, being a confusion of the 
real etymology of " control." 

We speak, indeed of a Board of Control, 
meaning accounts; but as count is compu- 
tare, so control is contra rotulare, to counter- 
roll, or keep a check upon a parchment roll. 

Accoutrement. Latin consutura, a stitch or 
seam, from consuere, to sew together. This 
became the French coudre, to sow ; whence 
accoutrements, clothes, and other trappings 
or coverings, as being made of pieces shaped 
and sewed together. 

Accrue is from the French accroitre, and this 
from the Latin accrescere. Ad, to, and 
crescere, to grow. Another form is found 
in the word " accretion." 



8 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Accustom. See Custom. 

Achieve. French achever, to bring to {chef) 
a head, or illustrious culmination; as " finish" 
is to bring to an end, or satisfactory con- 
clusion. So all things achieved are finished, 
but all things finished are not worthy to be 
called achieved. 

Acorn. Saxon cec or ac, an oak, and corn, 
corn or grain ; the corn, kernel, or seed of 
the oak. 

Acquaint seems clearly to be, as Skinner says, 
from accognitare, from cognitus, known. 
Menage hints at adcomitari, to accompany, 
which seems far-fetched. Yet quaint is from 
comptus. See Quaint. Those would not 
be without a show of reason who should say 
that quaint is cognitus and not comptus, but 
that, beginning with a faint sense of the 
latter, as " quaint attire," meaning studiously 
neat, had picked up the stronger sense of the 
former also, as " quaint erudition," meaning 
recondite. 

Acquit. Acquietare, from quies, peace or 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 9 

quiet. To acquit was to grant a quittance, 
or quietance; th^ is, a release from his 
obligations for the quieting of the mind of 
the debtor. See Quit. 

We have a word of the same derivation 
expressing the intransitive aspect of quietare, 
" acquiesce." 

Adage. A sententious saying or proverb. 
Latin ad, and agere, to bring. So an adage 
is a sentence which brings a matter of con- 
duct to a point and condenses it into a 
portable and telling form. 

Address. Ad, and dirigere, to direct. The 
word comes out more plainly in the Italian 
addrizzare. 

To address is to move, as an active or 
neuter verb, in a straight line towards 
another; to present to him one's self, or 
some statement, salutation, or request ; and 
address is the faculty of selecting and 
employing means to secure attention or 
gain a purpose to which one directs or 
addresses one's self. 



10 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Adept. A master, or skilful practitioner of an 
art. Adeptus is the Latin participle of the 
verb adipisci, to find. An adept, therefore, 
is one who by practice has learnt the best 
way of doing a thing, and shows his know- 
ledge by his skill. 

Adjourn, means to put off from day to day ; 
secondly, to put off to a particular day; and 
thirdly, to postpone generally. 

For the derivation, see Journal. 

Adore. This word is commonly derived 
from ad, and orare, to pray, as if it were no 
more than to pray; but adoration may be 
without prayer, as an act of reverence, 
homage, or worship. A better account is 
that it is more directly connected with os, 
oris, the mouth, than through the word 
orare, or rather that adorare itself had some- 
times the sense of kissing the hand to an 
object, which must have been one of the 
most ancient forms of adoration. It is 
alluded to in the Book of Job as among the 
fascinations of idolatry : — 

" If I beheld the sun as it shined, 



CUEIOUS DERIVATIONS. 11 

Or the moon walking in brightness, 
And my heart hath been secretly enticed, 
Or my mouth hath kissed my hand." 

Advance. French avancer ; avant, forwards. 
Compare English " van," the front, and 
" vantage," as vantage ground ; also " advan- 
tage," that is, a circumstance of promotion 
implying benefit. 

Advocate. A private or professional sup- 
porter of the cause of another; and hence 
used also in the sense of a supporter of an 
opinion or a set of opinions. It is, literally, 
one called to the side of another to be his 
supporter. It is the Latin correlative of 
the Greek nap ccx Xv\ ro g, which, in the English 
translation of the bible, bears the sense 
sometimes of " comforter " and sometimes of 
" advocate." 

Affable. Latin affabilis, from ad, and/a^z, 
to speak. 

An affable person is one with whom it is 
easy to speak, in whom no haughtiness 
makes him difficult of approach. 



12 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Agglomerate, See Conglomerate. 

Agony. Greek ayuv, agon, the contest of a 
public wrestler or prize-fighter in the ancient 
Greek games. Compare the title of Milton's 
Samson Agonistes. 

So agony is that internal struggle which 
we carry on within ourselves at times of 
great pain. Is there here an intimation 
that suffering is no essential part of our 
human lot, but that against which, as 
against an intruder, we feel instinctively 
that we have a right to struggle ? 

Agree, Agreeable. French agreer, to 
agree, from the Latin ad, and grains, 
pleasing or agreeable. 

Aim. Old French esmer, to aim, also written 
aesmer. In this older form we have the his- 
tory of the word plainly written. It is from 
cestimare, to estimate ; for what does the aimer 
at a material object but estimate distance, 
level, angles, and the like ? And what does 
the aimer at a moral object but estimate 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 13 

motives and probabilities, and the lines of 
action and the effects of counter-action ? So 
to estimate and to aim are one and the same 
word. 

Ait. A small island in broad fresh- water 
streams. The sounds of ai and i are in some 
cases common ; so aisle is pronounced as isle, 
though they are not etymologically con- 
nected. The islets of the Thames above 
London are commonly called "aits." 

Alert. A most picturesque word. Italian 
alV erta, on the mound or rampart. It is the 
position of the warder on the watch-tower, 
or the sentinel upon the rampart. Watch- 
fulness and wakefulness, and alacrity when 
called for. 

Alarm. Italian alV arme, to arms. The first 
meaning is a cry to arms, and out of this 
flowed the secondary meaning of fear or 
fright. 

So in Joel, u Sound an alarm in my holy 
mountain." 



14 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Allay. To appease, or quiet, from the Saxon 
lecgan, the English lay, to put down. Thus 
far the matter is plain, but the question oc- 
curs, is this allay the same as allay, other- 
wise alloy, as applied to metals ? On this 
opinions are divided. Richardson, apparently 
only on the ground of a common spelling, 
identifies them. Webster derives alloy from 
hi, lex, law, the debasement of the metal to 
the standard of the law. Upon the latter 
supposition, allay, to appease, would be the 
Saxon alecgan; allay, to abase, also spelt 
alloy, would \)Q the Latin allegare. 

Allege. Saxon alecgan; a, and lecgan, to lay 
down. Connected with lex and law, for law 
is something laid down. Compare the re- 
dundant expression, to lay down the law. 

Allegiance, Alligation, Alliance, are 
different forms of the same word, having 
their origin in ligare, adligare, to bind. 

Allow. It seems impossible to determine the 
derivation of this word. Some have it from 
allaudare, laus, praise. Some from allocare, 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 15 

locus, a place assigned. Some seem to sup- 
pose an old verb of which lot, law, would be 
the root, to recognize as lawful. Such, cer- 
tainly, is the nearest approximation to its 
present usage, but there is no authority for 
such a supposition. "Ye do allow the deeds 
of the wicked." In this the sense is plainly 
that of allaudare. On the other hand, an 
allowance in the sense of a stated grant 
rather reminds us of allocare. 

Alms, is a curious corruption of the Greek 
i\£Yi[Ao<rvi/Y\, pity, from ixisw, to pity. The 
adjective formed from it is retained in 
English in its uncontracted form, " elee- 
mosynary." 

Ambitious. Latin ambire, to go about. The 
term used of candidates going about to 
solicit votes for return to office in ancient 
Rome. 

Ambuscade. A lying in wait of a party of 
men ; but, according to the etymology, such 
a concealment in a wood. From the Low 



16 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Latin boscus and buscus, a wood. Compare 
the French bois, Italian bosco, German 
busch, English bush. So " ambush." 

Amenable. The derivation is very obscure. 
Amener in French is to bring or lead to; 
so that amenable would apparently be, easily 
led by disposition and liable to be led by 
controlling power. 

The question is about the root of mener. 
This may be mince, threats, as oxen, for 
instance, are driven or managed by the goad ; 
but as Spenser spells the word amesnable, 
Richardson thinks it may have been subject 
to the mesne or demesne lord, and so a term 
of feudal jurisdiction. 

Annoy, is a mysterious word. In French it 
is ennuyer, whence the common word ennui. 
The absence of the c or s points away from 
nocere, which the usage of the word natu- 
rally suggests. It seems as if the Latin 
odium lay at the root of it ; and we may 
perhaps imagine some such Low Latin verb 
as inodiare, for in odio habere. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 17 

Answer. The Saxon and, against, and swar- 
jan, to affirm, nearly connected with swerjan, 
to swear. 

Anthem. Not as Barrow writes, anthym, as 
if from ccv^vpvoq : but from dvri(poovo<; — (Hvt1 9 
over against, and cpoovri, a sound. So anti- 
phonal singing is the singing of alternate 
voices or bodies of voice, as in the modern 
chants of English cathedrals. 

Antic. Antiquus. So that " antic" is the 
same word in shorter form as antique. And 
antics are strange, grotesque, and as, it were, 
obsolete movements. 

Appal. French appalir, Latin pallidus, pale. 
" To appal" is to make one turn pale with fear. 

Arch. Sly, knowing. 

The prefix " arch," from the Greek ap^v, 
to rule, or be chief, must have been intro- 
duced, according to Skinner, into the Ger- 
man dialects at the fall of the Roman Empire. 
By some curious playfulness, it must have 
been adopted to express pre-eminence in 
c 



18 COMMON WORDS WITH 

knavery. In this way the word is still 
found convenient, as arch-traitor, arch-im- 
postor, and the epithet ee arch," as meaning 
sly, is the same thing in a much subdued 
tone. 

Arraign, is an old French word, which was 
spelt in many ways, one of which points out 
its origin with sufficient clearness, arrai- 
sonner. This would be in Low Latin arra- 
tionare, from ratio, in the sense of an account, 
or plea. So to arraign was to call into court, 
or before the tribunal of a superior, to give 
an account of himself on the part of the 
accused. 

Arrive. The Low Latin arrivare might have 
led to the supposition that the word meant 
to enter the river's mouth, and navigate it 
upwards to the landing-place, from ad, and 
rivus, a river, did not the word also occur in 
the other form of arripare — ad, and ripa, a 
bank — to come to the bank or landing-place, 
to come to shore ; hence, generally, to reach 
a given point of destination. 

Arrogant, is formed from the active participle 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 19 

of the Latin arrogare, to ask for one's self. 
The arrogant man is he who demands or 
claims from others an undue amount of 
deference or consideration. 

Assay, — a noun and a verb, — the act or process 
of trying ; literally, weighing. It is the same 
word as " essay," though differently used. 
The root is the Latin exagium, a weighing, 
like examen, a contraction of exagmen, the 
tongue of the balance, which gives its root 
to the word examination. 

Atone, is to set at one, that is, to reconcile. 
Suffering, sacrifice, compensation, which are 
the media of such reconciliation, have come 
to be regarded as the atonement itself. 

Attack and Attach are the same words, de- 
rived from the French attacker and attaquer, 
from the Celtic tac (compare the English 
tack), a nail, which, as it is regarded as an 
object of striking, or a means of fastening, 
suggests the ideas of attack or attachment. 

In the description of the Tabernacle, in 
the Book of Exodus, we meet with the form 
" taches." 



20 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Attire, now means dress generally, especially 
of a more sumptuous kind. To tire, how- 
ever, was used of the decoration of the head. 
So Jezebel " tired her head." The word is 
the same as tier or row, and to tire the head 
would be to arrange it in tier upon tier of 
natural or artificial bands. Compare the 
tiara, or triple crown of the Pope. 

Attitude. Aptitudo, aptus. Attitude, when 
used in its simplest or physical sense, is a 
collocation or pose of the limbs. When 
more is meant, it is that composition of them 
which befits a correspondent posture of the 
mind, or condition of the feelings. 

Avenge, comes through the French avenger, 
from the Latin vindicare. 

"To avenge" is to vindicate one's self on 
another by retaliation. 

Awkward. Saxon aweg, away, and ward, the 
common termination of direction, a swaying 
or swerving from lines of regulative move- 
ment from a want of self-management. 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 21 

Azure. Spanish azul, from the Arabic lazul, 
applied to the stone called lapis lazuli. The 
I has been changed into r in French, Italian, 
and English. 



| ACHELOB. The etymology of this 
word seems hopeless. The following 
are some of the suggestions. 

Baccalarius, the tenant of a kind of farm 
called baccalaria, inferior in degree to a 
banneret, one who could lead retainers with 
a banner of his own. 

Bacheliers, in French quasi has chevaliers, 
meaning the same as the above and possibly 
the origin of the baccalaria. 

Battalarius, a soldier who has once en- 
gaged in battle. 

Baccalaureus, the academical title from 
bacca laurits, the laurel berry or bay, which 
those who reject it regard as a later modi- 
fication of the word. 

There is an old word meaning little, 
young, small, which appears in the Welch 



22 COMMON WOKDS WITH 

backer, a young woman, vassal, from gwas, 
Welch for boy, and the old French bache- 
lette, a young girl. 

Bail, to pay a sum of money for release, is 
from the Latin bajulare, to bear a burden, 
from bajulus, a porter. " To bail," in the sense 
of emptying water, sometimes wrongly spelt 
bale, is the same word. 

Balance. The a of the first syllable is a 
corruption. The Italian bilancia preserves 
the root of bi for bis, double, and lanx, lands, 
a plate or scale. 

Balk, to baffle ; a very old word. 

Balk was a beam, from its likeness to 
which a ridge of land left unploughed between 
two furrows was called a " balk." This gave 
the earliest meaning of omission to the word ; 
to come to a balk would be to come to 
where the ploughing ceased : hence various 
meanings which have flowed out of this, 
such as baffle, omit, disappoint, obstruct. 

Ballad. A popular song originally accom- 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 23 

panied by dancing ; " si cantava a ballo" 
Italian ballare, to dance, from j3aAAi'£f*i/ 5 
which is from (ZoLxXsiv, to throw about (the 
feet) in dancing. 

Bayonet. From Bayonne, where, in 1640, 
the first bayonets were made. 

Beauty. French beaute, from beau, which is 
from bellus. The word " beauty " has ac- 
quired a far higher meaning than belongs 
either to the French beau, as used in 
English, or to the Latin bellus, which meant 
neat, spruce, not beautiful. 

Begin. The be is a common Saxon prefix, the 
verb ginnan, also Saxon, meant w to cut." 
Compare the French entamer, as M entamez ce 
pain" cut this loaf. So to begin is to cut 
into a thing by way of commencement. He 
who cuts the first sod in a new line of rail- 
way might be said literally to begin it. 

Behave. The German prefix, and the verb 
haben, to have ; to have or carry one's self, 
as in Latin se gerere. " Behaviour" is the 



24 COMMON WORDS WITH 

subjective aspect of conduct, the former 
relating to the demeanour of the person in 
himself, the latter to his prosecution of a line 
of action toward external things or persons. 
Hence it follows that behaviour may refer to 
that which is not of any moral character. 
As a man may be said to behave himself in 
a singular manner, but he conducts himself 
well or ill. 

Belfry. The word in old and new French 
has been spelt in a great variety of ways. 
It is now beffroi. It means a stronghold or 
tower, especially among writers of the mid- 
dle ages; a moveable tower of several stories, 
used in besieging. The word is here noticed 
for the sake of the observation that it is in 
no way connected in its derivation with the 
word "bell." It is, however, so common and 
convenient to hang bells in such towers that 
the French word beffroi is used as synony- 
mous with the English belfry, though bell 
is not a French word at all. 

Belief. "Faith." From libido, desire ; a long- 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 25 

ing desire of an object in one assuming or 
feeling persuaded of its reality. 

It expresses that feeling of human nature 
which lends itself willingly to credit what it 
desires to be true* 

Compare the provincial English word lief, 
"I would as lief go," that is, as willingly, 

Bequeath, was originally to devise by word 
of mouth, from an old verb queath, to speak 
or say. It thus carries us back to those 
primitive times when lands would be given 
away without accompanying documents of 
transfer, but in the presence of witnesses, 
with whom and their descendants would be 
reposed, as evidence, the tradition of the 
transaction. 

The verb survives in the participle of 
bequeath, namely, "bequest," and in the old- 
fashioned word "quoth." 

Beseech, is to beseek, to seek earnestly, or 
have recourse to in supplication, and was at 
one time written so. The disguise of the com- 
mon word " seek," here reminds us of another 



26 COMMON WORDS WITH 

form which the word wears in the compound 
"forsake;" that is, the contrary to seeking, 
"for" having the sense of negation. 

Bigot. Etymologists give two possible deri- 
vations for this word. One makes it Nor- 
man, bigot, an oath, according to Ducange, 
sworn by Rollo Duke of Normandy, when 
called upon to kiss the foot of Charles King 
of France in homage. " Ne se Bigot!" — 
" Not so, by God ! " On which the King's 
Court called him bigoih, a name which after- 
wards attached to the Normans. Others de- 
rive it from the Flemish beghard and beguine. 
A beguinage is an institution of pious ladies 
living together without conventual vows. 

Bigote is the Spanish for whisker, whence, 
say others, the word meant first a fierce bra- 
vado, and afterwards a fiery zealot. 

We can do no more than register these 
suppositions. 

Bit (noun), meaning a small piece of any- 
thing, is really the participle of the verb "to 
bite," and exactly corresponds with the word 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 27 

"morsel/' used in the same sense and derived 
from the Latin mordere, to bite. 

Blackguard. Originally the scullions and 
lower menials of a Court, who had charge of 
the kitchen utensils and formed, as such, a 
part of the retinue, were called, from the 
colour of their charge and their own, the 
"black guard;" hence, a low fellow. So 
Holland, " Next unto whom goeth the black 
guard and kitchenry." 

Blame. This word is noticeable as being, 
under a more abridged form, and with a 
milder meaning, the same as "blaspheme." 
Greek j3 A oc <r<fr\pii v, from fiXocrrTzw ryv pvi[jt.nv, 
to deteriorate the character. 

Bodkin. Two derivations are given for this 
word. One from the Welch bidogyn, & 
dagger, which is the sense in which the old 
writers, as Shakespeare, use it. Others say 
the final syllable marks the diminutive of 
"body"— "bodikin." 

In provincial English a child or lesser 
person, being made to sit between two others, 



28 COMMON WORDS WITH 

is called a " bodkin," the slenderer being 
chosen for such a situation. 

Boggle. To act hesitatingly or blunderingly. 
Richardson says from "bog," so that to boggle 
is to flounder or stick in the mud. But 
there is an expression of Glanville's which 
would seem to point to another origin — 
" We start and boggle at every unusual ap- 
pearance ; " as if "boggle " were from " bogie " 
or "bogey," a North of England word for 
spectre, and connected with "bug-bear," to 
show awkwardness, as if it were the result 
of bewilderment and fear in one who had 
seen a ghost. 

Bombast. Swelling talk, bombast being ori- 
ginally cotton padding. Low Latin bombax, 
cotton, and this from bombyx, a silk-worm. 
Bombazine is another form. So Shakespeare, 
whose line throws the accent on the former 
syllable of the word— 

"Evades them with a bombast circumstance, 
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war." 

Brilliant. The participle of the French 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 29 

briller, to shine, Italian Irillare, and these 
from the stone j3n'puAAo?, beryllus, beryl. 
The beryl is said by mineralogists to be of 
the same substance as the emerald, but vary- 
ing in the colouring matter, the emerald 
being coloured by oxide of chrome, the 
beryl by oxide of iron. "When transparent 
the beryl is called, from the colour, aqua 
marina. 

Buxom. The qualities which this word is 
commonly taken to express have grown out 
of association, and in no way belong to its 
derivation; such qualities, for instance, as 
frolicsome, healthy, fair. 

Buxom is the German beigsam, from the 
Saxon bugan> to yield, which survives in our 
word "bow," and meant at first compliant, 
obedient, submissive. SoFoxe speaks of being 
" buxom and obedient to the Ordinance of 
the Church." 




30 COMMON WORDS WITH 

5ABAL. French cab ale y Hebrew 
gabbala, mystic tradition. 

A cabal, as the word is now com- 
monly used, means a company united in a 
close design, the Hebrew element of handing 
down the traditions of the association being 
lost sight of. 

By a quaint coincidence, the initial letters 
of the British Cabinet Ministers in 1671 
formed the word " cabal." The names were 
Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley, 
Lauderdale. 

The notion of mystic tradition or sym- 
bolism though lost in " cabal," is preserved 
in the adjective "cabalistic." 

Cabbage, is from the old French cabus, from 
which is derived the modern chous, headed 
cole, from the Latin caput. Compare the 
heraldic term caboshed, beheaded. The verb 
"to cabbage" is to filch, as tailors are said to 
snip cloth to their own advantage. The idea 
seems to be that of snipping off the head of 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 31 

your neighbours' vegetables by horticultural 
poaching. 

Cabinet, is the diminutive of " cabin," a word 
which occurs in all the European languages, 
as the French cabane, Spanish cabana, Ita- 
lian capanna, a cottage. 

Caitiff, a ruffian, rascal, or miscreant, is 
from the Italian cattivo, bad, which is from 
the Latin captivus, a captive, either because 
those captured by the law or the govern- 
ment would be worthless characters, or as 
suggesting, what is doubtless true, the ten- 
dency of servitude or slavery to debase the 
character. 

Cajole, is from the Norman French cage, a 
cage. So much seems clear; but the ques- 
tion is whether the word meant to coax into 
a cage, and so entrap, or keep up a wheedling 
talk, like a jay, or some such bird, in a cage. 

Calamity — calamus, a stalk — is a blighting 
influence upon the grain ; a bad harvest, in 
the strictest sense of the term, is a calamity. 



32 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Hence it was used to express an influence of 
ill, individually or collectively. And so the 
word is always employed of such things as 
are wholly unconnected with man's agency, 
thus differing from disaster. Disasters are 
incurred, but calamities are, so to speak, sent. 

Calculate, to reckon ; calx, calculus, a peb- 
ble, used in primitive apparatus for count- 
ing or computing. 

The Chinese instrument of balls strung 
upon wires, each wire having its own deci- 
mal value, is an illustration of calculation in 
its literal sense. 

Calibre. The word is often used in a meta- 
phorical sense for power or force of mind or 
character. There can be little doubt that 
the Latin libra, scale, or balance, lies at the 
root of it ; but it may be either a corruption 
of " equilibrium," the proportions of a gun to 
the weight of the ball it has to carry ; or, 
qua libra, with what weight. The " calibre " is 
the bore of the gun, which by its diameter 
shows the weight of its ball. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 33 

Cancel. Cancelli, rails, bars, or grating. So 
chancel, the part of a church within the rails 
or screen ; and chancellor, the judge who sat 
railed off from the body of the court. When 
documents are meant to be obliterated, or 
preserved, but in such a way as to indicate 
that they are no longer of force, it is common 
to cross and recross them with diagonal lines, 
like grating, whence the document is said to 
be cancelled. 

Candidate. The aspirant to political honours 
in ancient Rome, as he went about soliciting 
votes wore, for distinction's sake, a toga of a 
more shining white added by the fuller. 

Canon. Greek xai/wi/, connected with xccwn, 
a cane, and the English can or vessel, is first 
a hollow rule or cane used as a measure, 
then a law or rule. Sometimes, as ecclesi- 
astically, one who lives by a certain rule of 
the institution to which he belongs. The word 
is interesting as being identical with cannon, 
into which an additional n has been intro- 

D 



34 COMMON WORDS WITH 

duced by way of distinction, so called from 
its hollow, tube-like form. 

Canopy. Greek xooi/oo7tb7ov, from ytum^ a gnat. 
A canopy is therefore, in the first instance, a 
mosquito curtain, and has advanced in dig- 
nity as to its application. 

CANVAS'(verb), to call in question, as to 
canvas a statement, also to solicit votes as 
for an election, is derived from cannabis, 
hemp. This made into coarse cloth would 
be the material of ships' sails or the painter's 
canvas. The same kind of cloth might be 
used as a strainer; hence, to canvas would be, 
literally, to strain off minute particles of 
sediment ; metaphorically, to sift and inspect 
the details of a statement, or to take, vote by 
vote, the elements of a constituency. 

Cardinal. Latin cardinalis, from cardo, 
cardinis y a hinge. A cardinal point is that 
on which something turns or hinges ; hence 
the sense of important, then dignified, and 
then, as a personal noun, a dignitary. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 35 

Caress. Caritia, from the adjective cams, 
Latin for endearment. 

Caricature. From carrus, a cart; connected 
with many co-derivatives, as carriage, carry, 
career, charge, and others. 

We are bound therefore to the verb ca- 
ricare, to cart about, and a caricature would 
be originally either an absurd representation 
which would be likely to be of living cha- 
racters, carried about as, for instance, at fairs, 
or an over-charged, over-loaded description. 

Cavil. Cavum, a hollow; cavellum, a little 
hollow or hole ; to cavil is to seek to pick 
little holes ; cavillum, a banter. 

Ceremony is usually derived from Care, one 
of the principal cities of ancient Etruria, 
from which ancient Rome derived many of 
its social and political customs; hence its 
sense of a prescribed form for conducting a 
social or political transaction. 

Chagrin. French, spelt also in English 
shagreen, is a hard granulated leather, which 



36 COMMON WORDS WITH 

chafes the limbs (it is used also for a certain 
kind of hard fish-skin), hence "chagrin" has 
the meaning of irritation, or galling vexation. 

Challenge. To impeach, and so force a man 
to clear himself, or to summon to account 
for himself, as the sentinel challenges the 
passer-by. As applied to statements, it 
means to dispute or call in question their 
truth or soundness. The word is an altered 
form of the Latin calumniari, to calumniate. 

Champion. Latin campio, from campus, a 
field. A man of the field or lists ; a man of 
battle, especially on behalf of some person or 
cause ; also an acknowledged chief in some 
department of competition. 

Chance, is a curious form of cadentia, & befal- 
ment, from cadere, to fall. 

We still use such phrases as, " It fell out 
by chance," which is, however, a redundancy. 

Character. Greek ^a^c-o-w, I groove or 
engrave; a sculptured form or symbol, as 
an alphabetical character ; taken for the ag- 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 37 

gregate of the moral qualities, the social 
personality of the man, his stamp. 

Charm (verb), Latin carmen, a song,- or rather 
magical incantation. " To charm " is to reduce 
under the influence of witchery ; to bewitch 
and to enchant are words embodying the 
same idea. 

Coarse. As this word was originally spelt 
" course " there is reason to believe that the 
two are one, and that coarse meant, first, 
common, and then, by an easy transition, 
rough and unrefined : that which occurs in 
cursu, or common course. 

Companion. The derivation of this word is 
uncertain ; con, and panis, bread : so that a 
companion was originally a messmate; or, 
compago, compaginis, a lock or fastening, one 
fastened to another in friendly association. 

Conciliate. Concilium, a council. " To con- 
ciliate " is to take into a body associated for 
a common object; to win over, so as to induce 
to join in a companionship or council. By 



38 COMMON WORDS WITH 

usage the collective element has been drop- 
ped, and we now speak of one person con- 
ciliating another. 

Conclave, Latin con, and clavis, a key, in 
the first instance meant a closed apartment, 
and afterwards the persons on whom a key 
was turned in close council. The jury locked 
up for a verdict, or the College of Cardinals 
for the election of a Pope, illustrate the 
primary and literal sense of a " conclave." 

Conglomerate. Latin con, and glomus, a 
ball or knot of wool or cotton entangled; 
hence, to bring into a state of complication 
by a process which stands opposed to un- 
ravelling. The familiar appearance called a 
" thief" in the wick of a candle is a con- 
glomeration. 

Control. Latin contra, over against, and 
rotulus, a roll, as of parchment, upon which 
accounts and such things were kept. The 
control would be the counter-roll, tally, or 
check; hence, to control in the sense of regu- 
lating expenditure or checking accounts, 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 39 

from which it has passed to the wider mean- 
ing of regulation generally. 

Copy, is the Latin copia, abundance. To take 
a copy of anything is to tend to multiply the 

. original representation. A literary work 
becomes plentiful by the multiplication of 
copies. 

Corollary. The corollarium, from corolla, a 
chaplet, was a graceful donation of something 
given as a token of satisfaction and friend- 
ship, such as a chaplet of flowers, over and 
above what was paid for the wages of a work 
— a graceful and gratuitous superaddition. 
Used in mathematics and argument to ex- 
press a secondary inference over and above 
that which directly flows from the problem 
or premisses. 

Curmudgeon, is a curious Anglicism of the 
French cceur mechant, bad heart. 

Custom, French coutume, is from the Latin 
consuetudo ; the verb consuescere, to be ac- 
customed. 




40 COMMON WORDS WITH 

[ECO Y. The « coy" in this word is the 
same in etymology as the old adjec- 
tive "coy," from quietus, modest, re- 
tiring, shy. The root meaning to soothe, or 
quiet, to speak peace. Its derived meaning, 
to speak peace where there is no peace, to 
allure into danger or the snare, as distin- 
guished from more open, violent, or noisy 
methods of attack and capture. In snaring 
birds the decoy was a bird of the same species 
as those hunted, which was tamed and trained 
to lure them into a snare or within shot ; but 
this is an application of the term, not the 
essence of it, which is ensnarement by quiet 
deception. 

Decrepit. We are apt to associate infirmity 
or disability, through extreme age, so closely 
with this word as to overlook the fact that 
such ideas are no essential part of it, but 
only associations that have sprung up about 
it. "Decrepit" is from de, down, or out of, 
and crepitus, from crepare, to make a noise. 
It expresses, not the disability, but the noise- 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 41 

lessness of old age, when the ringing voice 
and joyous manner that made itself heard, 
and the firm step of manhood, have subsided 
into the subdued manner and movements of 
the aged, of which extreme bodily infirmity 
is the fullest manifestation. 

Defalcation. A diminution or subtraction 
from what is due to be rendered, as in the 
balance of an account. Falx is a sickle, so 
that defalcation might be a pruning of the 
accounts, or the amount due of whatever 
sort; but the word was also used for a 
falchion, which is derived from it, and in this 
way a defalcation would be rather an ampu- 
tation, or mutilation of them. 

Demur, is from the Latin demorari, which is 
from mora, delay ; to interpose a delay, as 
against a statement, or a legal proceeding, 
as implying a doubt or difficulty. 

Demure. Old French de murs, of manners, 
that is, good manners; Latin mores. The 
word has come to signify more than a due 
self-restraint. 



42 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Disaster. A word of astrological origin, com- 
pounded of dis, and astrurn, a star. An ill- 
fated, or ill-starred event. For its difference 
from calamity, see Calamity. 

Discard. From dis, and carta, a card ; means, 
literally, to throw out of one's hand as a 
worthless card. 

Dupe, is said to be equivalent to the French 
huppe or hoopoe, a foolish bird, easily caught. 
The word may be thus classed with goose, 
booby, and gull. 



\ AGEE is the Latin acer, sharp, which 
has come to us through the French 
aigre. In English, eager is only used 
of things pertaining to character, disposition, or 
conduct. The French aigre, like the Latin 
acer, applies also to things sensational. So 
vinegar is vinum acrum> or vin aigre. 

Eliminate. Limen, Latin for threshold ; the 
threshold, by synecdoche, taken for the 
house. So " to eliminate" is to bring out from 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 43 

the privacy or darkness of domestic seclusion 
into the broad and common light of day. 
Accordingly, its old and now obsolete mean- 
ing was to cast out of doors, discharge, or set 
at liberty. It is now used to mean — first, 
to make a general subject clear, by drawing 
out of it and parting off that which tends to 
darken or confuse; or secondly, to extract 
from such a general subject, or aggregate of 
subjects, a leading idea or principle which 
shall throw light upon the rest. 
Emancipate, to set at liberty. 

JE, Latin, out or away, and mancipare, to 
take formal possession. Manus, the hand, 
and capere, to take. 

According to the old Roman law there 
were distinct ceremonies both for the pur- 
chase and the liberation of slaves. When 
they were bought, the master formerly laid 
his hand upon them, in token of his posses- 
sion and mastership. 

As this process was called mancipium, its 
contrary is expressed in English by the word 
"emancipation." 



44 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Emolument. Latin emolere, to grind by a 
mill. 

The sale of the article flour would be, in 
the first instance, emolument; thence the 
term was extended to profitable proceeds 
generally. 

Enchant. Latin cantus, cantare, in the sense 
of a magical incantation ; to draw under the 
influence of a spell, and, as it were, bewitch 
with delight. 

Compare the word Charm. 

Encroach. Low Latin incrocare, to hang by 
a hook. Compare French croc and crochet, 
and the English crook. 

"To encroach "is to hook up something 
that does not belong to you, and consequently 
to trespass upon your neighbour's premises 
or rights for the purpose. 

The angler who should poach upon a 
fish-preserve might illustrate the etymology 
of cs encroachment." 

Espousals, is the same word as "sponsals," but 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 45 

derived through the French, as "sponsals," 
more directly from the Latin spondere, to pro- 
mise solemnly, to betroth. It is now used as 
synonymous with nuptials, but among the 
Jews, and at present in the Greek Church, 
the espousals or betrothal was distinct from 
the nuptials or actual marriage, and a con- 
siderable space of time might intervene. In 
the Marriage Service of the Church of Eng- 
land there is an amalgamation of the espou- 
sals and the nuptials. 

Euphuism. A certain affected style of speak- 
ing and writing fashionable for a time at the 
Court of Queen Elizabeth, having its origin 
in the fame of Lyly's two performances, 
" Euphues, or the Anatomy of Wit," and 
" Euphues and his England." 

This high-flown diction is ridiculed by 
Sir Walter Scott, in the character of Sir 
Piercie Shafton, in the " Monastery." 

Exchequer. A corruption of the old French 
eschequier. See Check. 



46 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Exergue. Greek |£, out, and tpyov, a work, is 
used for a space or inscription upon a medal, 
coin, or other such surface, below the line to 
which the work of the engraver or sculptor 
descends. The name of the designer or 
sculptor would be placed on the " exergue." 

Extricate. Tricce in Latin are little knots 
or entanglements, such as the meshes of a 
net, or the feathers which grow about the 
legs of birds, and are likely to entangle them. 
So the teeth of the little mouse in the 
fable extricated the lion. 

^AINT, in the sense of weak, languid, 
weary, is curious as belonging to the 
same root as feign, to pretend, viz. 
sefeindre, to pretend. 

So that fainting is, in the first instance, 
pretended inability or weakness, and has 
been extended to include that which is with- 
out pretence. 

Farce. Latin farcire, to stuff as with flour, 
herbs, and other ingredients in cookery. 




CUKIOUS DERIVATIONS. 47 

Hence force-meat is farce-meat or stuffing. 
A farce is a comedy with little or no plot, 
but stuffed and crammed with ludicrous inci- 
dents and expressions. 

Feature. Jj&tmfactura^a, making, or making 

up of a compound whole or structure, as of a 

landscape, or the human figure. 

So Spenser, of creatures in general — 

" And to her service bind each living creature, 
Through secret understanding of their feature ; " 

that is, form or nature. 

So Chaucer, of man in particular — 
"What needeth it his feature to describe ?" 
Thence it passed into meaning the parts 

of the compound, as the lineaments of the 

face, and became plural. So Milton — 
"It is for homely features to keep home." 
The word is used in the sense of trait or 

characteristic, or observable circumstances 

in a case. 

Feeble. Deplorably weak. 

The modern French faible does not sug- 
gest the etymology of the word, which, how- 



48 COMMON WORDS WITH 

ever, appears in the old form fieuble, and is 
confirmed by the Italian fievole, where the i 3 
according to Italian analogy, indicates an 
ancient 7. So we arrive at the Latin fiebilis, 
from fiere, to weep, and the idea of tearful 
destitution, and lamentable weakness. 

Filigree. This is a French word, as is also 
the correspondent filigrave. 

The root is filum, a thread. Compare 
English " filament ; " and the word is meant 
to express the idea of work in the precious 
metals of a filamentous character, or thread- 
like fineness. It commonly consists actually 
of fine gold or silver threads or wires. 

Filter, to strain. 

Low Latin feltrum, felt, used originally 
for the purpose of a strainer. The word is 
principally interesting as bearing out the 
analogous derivation of Canvas, which see. 
Compare the compound form " infiltrate." 

Finance. Latin finis, an end, seems to em- 
• body the notion of a settlement or winding- 
up of accounts. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 49 

Compare the English word " fine " as used 
for a pecuniary penalty, or payment on the 
renewal of a lease. 

Flatter. The root of the word is "flat;" to 
flatter is to touch gently, and stroke or smooth 
down with the flat hand or palm. 

Frantic. Excessively excited in mind. Greek 
qoyiv, the mind. The etymology of the 
word is more apparent under its other 
mode of spelling, with the initial ph instead of 
f. So we should have phrene, phrenetic, 
phrentic, phrantic, or frantic. 

Futile. Jj&tmfutilis, from fundere, to pour. 
The futile person was one who had little self- 
restraint or knowledge, and poured forth of 
his folly. Compare the proverb, " The 
mouth of fools poureth out foolishness." 
Thence the epithet was transferred to the sub- 
ject-matter, and a " futile pretext," for in- 
stance, is one which from inherent insolidity 
will not hold together. 



e 



50 COMMON WORDS WITH 




jAFFER was originally a term of 
respect, but has degenerated into 
disrespect, being a contraction of 
godfather, as u gammer " of godmother. 

Galaxy — Greek ycH\u, y&Xocxrog, milk — the 
milky-way, which is composed of innumerable 
stars. The term has since been employed 
as a synonym for " constellation," and is taken 
metaphorically to express an assemblage of 
splendid things or persons. 

Gamboge, belongs to a class of nouns in which 
the names of materials keep up the recollec- 
tion of countries from which they were de- 
rived. Gamboge from Gambodia ; calico from 
Calicut ; millinery from Milan ; bayonet 
from Bayonne ; china from the country so 
called ; and others. 

Gammon. Though a distinction is preserved 
in modern cookery between ham and gammon, 
they have precisely the same derivation, 



CUKIOUS DERIVATIONS. 51 

namely, the French jambon, of which gammon 
is a corruption, from jambe, a leg, whence 
ham. 

Garble (verb), is to select such extracts or quo- 
tations as may throw the colouring we desire 
upon statements or arguments based on those 
extracts. The word, it appears, was originally 
of examining spices. In Spanish garbillo is 
a coarse sieve, which must have been from the 
Latin cribellum, diminutive oicribrum, a sieve. 
As the garbler sifted the coarse and useless 
parts, or the dust and dross, from the valuable 
spices, so he who garbles rejects what is 
unavailable, artfully selecting Avhat conduces 
to his purpose of representation. 

Gentle. Gentilis, of good family ; gens, a 
family ; gentle manners come of gentle birth. 
" Genteel" is a form of the same word, but 
with refined speakers and writers is fast 
growing into disfavour. 

Gossip ; first meant a sponsor, and afterwards a 
familiar acquaintance, from " god" and " sib,'> 
meaning alliance or relationship. Familiar 



52 COMMON WORDS WITH 

talk, especially among the illiterate, is apt to 
turn upon other people's affairs, whence the 
use of gossip in the sense of milder scandal. 

Grotesque ; like the strange forms used to 
decorate grottoes. Grotto is from xpv7TTog, 
hidden, whence the Low Latin grupta, and 
the English crypt. 




i ANDSOME, from * hand," at the first 
meant dexterous, and convenient or 
handy, accordingly as it was applied 
to things or persons. The essential natural 
connection between physical proportion on 
the one hand, and dexterity or excellence of 
physical movement and action appears in this 
word ; well-knit limbs being the most agile, 
and most graceful also. From the person gene- 
rally, to which it is still applied in Scotland, 
it was transferred to the features of the face, 
and, by analogy, to moral acts, in the sense 
of generous or liberal. 



CUKIOUS DERIVATIONS. 53 

Harbinger. One who finds a harbour or 
auberge, that is, lodgment, preceding a royal 
personage in his travels for that purpose ; 
hence, a herald or fore-runner, as poets 
speak of birds as the harbingers of spring. 

Head. Greek asp a An', Latin caput, Saxon 
heafod, German haupt, English head. 

Heathen, from the German heide, a heath, 
were those who lived in the heathy or rural 
districts, as distinguished from the inhabitants 
of towns. So, like the Pagans, pagani, in- 
habitants of the pagi or villages ; they were 

. the last to be brought into contact with the 
Christianity of the cities. This is the deri- 
vation given by Vossius, instead of the more 
current one, that heathen is the same word as 
the Greek sfli/rj, nations. 

Hinder, from the Saxon hind, back, is remark- 
able by reason of the relation in which it 
stands to prevent. For as " hinder" is to go 
behind in order to retard or keep back, so to 
prevent, from Latin prevenire, to come before 
or to go ahead of one, for the same purpose. 




54 COMMON WOKDS WITH 



DIOT. The Greek ISiuryg meant a 
person in private life as distinguished 
from one who held a public office. 
Usage assumed that the disqualification was 
want of ability, and the excess of such want 
was expressed by the term " idiot." Bishop 
Jeremy Taylor used the word in its old sense 
when he said that " humility is a duty in 
great ones, as well as idiots." 

Imbecile. Weak, infirm ; more commonly 
used now of weakness or infirmity of mind. 
Baculus, a staff; bacillum, a walking-stick. 
In and bacillum give the Latin imbecillis and 
imbecillus, one who through infirmity leans 
for support upon a stick. 

Immolate, to destroy or sacrifice. Latin 
immolare, to sprinkle the victim with coarse 
flour mixed with salt, called " mola salsa." 

Immunity, i/z, not, and munus in the sense of 
a public office. An immunity was at first an 
exemption from the necessity of serving a 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 55 

public office, and afterwards an exemption 
from penalty or inconvenience generally. 

Impair, is probably from pejus, worse, which 
would give the verb impejorare, to make 
worse. 

Impeach, originally meant simply to stop or 
hinder. " A defluxion on my throat im- 
peached my utterance." — Howell. This was 
from the French empecher, to stop, which is 
from the Latin impingere, English to impinge. 

Interpolate. Inter, and polire, to polish, is 
used as simply equivalent to spurious inser- 
tions into the writings of another. From 
the structure of the word the original idea 
must have been the insertion of a new mean- 
ing rather than new matter. It is akin to 
the idea of gloze or gloss, which is to furbish, 
as it were, with an interpretation; and though 
gloss, in the sense of interpretation, comes 
directly from yXu<r(rcc, a tongue ; yet we 
must remember that yXccca-oc is deduced from 
yXQtiVtpolire, to polish, being, as it were, the 
glozed member. 



56 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Interloper, an intruder, is, according to Skin- 
ner, a Dutch word of commercial origin, 
formed from the Latin inter, and the Dutch 
loopen, to run. An interloper was one who 
ran in upon a line of commerce already occu- 
pied by others, contrary to the laws of fair 
trading. 

Intrigue. A word formed to express the 
underhanded proceedings of love or diplo- 
macy ; it is allied to the adjective st intricate," 
and the verb " to extricate." The root is tricce, 
small hindrances or entanglements, as the 
meshes of a net. He who is engaged in 
intrigue is like one who is walking among 
the meshes of a snare, and is liable each 
moment to entanglement and exposure. 

Inveigle, means, ordinarily, to lead into harm 
or difficulty. Its etymological force is to 
hoodwink or blindfold into such a condition. 
The old Norman French was enveogler, the 
modern French aveugler, to blind, from 
aveugle, blind, and this from the Latin ah 
oculis, without eyes. 



CUEIOUS DERIVATIONS. 57 

Inventory, is a list of goods or articles of 
property, and is derived from the Latin in- 
venire, to find ; but how is the idea of finding 
connected with the word ? The " inventory " 
was in the first instance that list of articles, 
real or personal, which was made over against 
the decease of the owner, and which after his 
death discovered (by which was found) the 
value of his property or estate ; thence the 
word was transferred to signify such a list, 
though not drawn up with that specific 
object. 

Investigate, is to closely track, and, as it 
were, step by step, from the Latin vestigium, 
a footstep. 

Invoice, a commercial term for the account 
of goods forwarded on board ship with their 
respective charges annexed, is another form 
and application of the word " envoy." En- 
voyer, in French, is to send on the way. So 
lettre cT envoi is a letter of advice of goods sent, 
forwarded, or started on the voyage. 

Irrelevant. From in, not, relevare, from 



58 COMMON WORDS WITH 

levis, light, to relieve or bear as a portion of 
a burden. When a statement does nothing to 
sustain the weight of an argument or proposi- 
tion, it is said to be irrelevant. 

Issue, is a curious corruption of the Latin 
exitus, from exire, to go out. 



JEALOUS, is the same word as zeal- 
ous ; so, in Italian, jealous is zeloso. 
For jealousy is zeal with a personal 
object; the good, reputation, interests of 
another, or one's own. 

The root is the Greek £fi\oq 9 emulation, 
zeal, or jealousy. 

Jeopardy, from the French. Not jeu perdu, 
which would hardly be jeopardy ; but jeu parti, 
a game in which the chances of winning and 
losing seemed equal. This is shown by the 
old English spelling, which was various, as 
jupartie ; hence, a critical state. 

Jostle, is derived from the French jonste, 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 59 

Italian giostra, the English joust, a mock 
tournament ; all connected, apparently, with 
the Latin juxta, close. A close and often 
rough encounter; whence, "jostle." 

Journal, dies, Latin, a day ; diurnus, diur- 
nal, daily ; whence the Italian giorno, a day : 
is a diary or record of the proceedings of the 
day. 



jENNEL, a dog-house; Italian canile, 
from Latin canis, a dog. 

This is not to be confounded with 
kennel in the sense of gutter, which is, though 
spelt in the same way, a distinct word, being 
a small " canal" or te aqueduct;" and which, 
like its kindred words can, cane, and channel, 
is derived from carina, a cane, being like a 
tube, or answering the same purpose. 

Kernel, is connected with the German kern, 
Latin granum, and the English corn. Of old 
"corn" was synonymous with seed, or fruit, 
and not restricted to wheat, or what is now 




60 COMMON WORDS WITH 

technically termed grain. So, for instance, 
acorn, oak-corn, seed or kernel of the oak. 

Kickshaw. Corrupted from the French quelque 
chose. It is used to express something fan- 
tastical, or something which it is not worth 
the trouble to name. In this latter sense it 
occurs commonly in the plural number. 
The word is used by Shakespeare. 

Kidney. There is a peculiar use of this word, 
which is probably of Gothic origin, as if it 
meant " nature" or " kind." So Barrow says, 
" Popes of another kidney." 

This has probably sprung from misappre- 
hension of Shakespeare, who makes FalstafF 
say, " Think of that, a man of my kidney, 
that am as subject to heat as butter ; a man 
of continual dissolution and thaw : " where the 
phrase meant a man of my fatness, not my 
sort. 

Kind (adj.), like humane, expresses the feel- 
ing which, in the intention of nature at 
least, exists between creatures of the same 
kind, kin, or kindred. The relation of kind- 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 61 

liness to kind is repeated in that of humanity 
to human, as in the well-known line of 
Terence:— 
" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto." 

Knave. Not originally a term of reproach, but 
meaning a boy ; or lad, then ? like garqon in 
French, a servant ; and lastly, a rogue. 

There is a singular parallel to this in the 
word " varlet," which is the same as " valet," 
and is a confirmation of Trench's remark that, 
in order to bring about such a change of 
meaning, " many serving-lads must have been 
unfaithful and dishonest. 5 ' 

In such cases, however, it seems fair to 
remember that if servants are often roguish, 
masters and superiors are not seldom abusive. 

Kneel. Greek yovv, Latin genu, English 
knee. Verb gen iculare, to geniculate, of which 
"kneel" is a contraction. 




62 COMMON WORDS WITH 



'ARBOAED, is said to be for lower 
boards or inferior side (the left) of a 
ship, as starboard is for steer-board. 
To avoid the confusion which might arise in 
giving orders, from the similarity of the 
words starboard and larboard, the latter is 
called port, of which the derivation is quite 
uncertain. Any attempt to explain the 
ground of the expression " steer side/' and 
"lower side," or "starboard,'' and "larboard," 
must be very questionable, and must go 
back to the earliest nautical arrangements, 
as the words are both of Saxon formation. 

Lass, is the feminine of lad — lad, ladess or 
lass — and is more commonly used of girls of 
the lower order, as lad of youths of the 
same. 

Laundry, the w T ashing4iouse of the laun- 
dress. Originally the word " launder " was 
used to denote the washerman, as laundress 
the washerwoman. Lavare, in Latin, is to 






CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 63 

wash ; hence the English " lavendry," which 
has been shortened into "laundry." From 
its use in washing and bathing the plant 
lavender is derived. 

Law, from the Saxon lecgan, to lay. A law 
is that which is laid down. So we sometimes 
say, " to lay down the law.' 5 The derivation 
is analogous to that of statute. Statutum, 
from statuere, to lay down, to establish. 

Leaven. Low Latin levannm. 

Levamentum, from levis, light, as making 
light or raising the dough, 

Leisure, Latin licere, to be permitted, through 
the French loiszr, is the licence or dispensa- 
tion from active business. 

Liable, comes through the French Her, from 
the Latin ligare, to bind ; that which is bound 
to certain issues, influences, and obligations 
is liable to them. 

Lien, the legal right to hold property till 
some claim upon it is satisfied, is from the 
same root, being a corruption of ligamen. 



64 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Liquorice, Latin liqueritia, is a corruption of 
yhvxvppi^a, (glycyrrhiza), sweet root, which 
is the name of a genus of plants. The 
liquorice is the glycyrrhiza glabra* 

Litter (verb)., to throw about in confusion, is 
the French litiere, from the Latin lectus, a bed. 
So the litter still in use in continental coun- 
tries is a portable bed or couch. The verb "to 
litter" meant in the first instance to spread 
soft substances about by way of bed or car- 
pet, and thence came to mean to throw or 
drop about in an untidy way. 

Livery, the uniform of domestic servants, is a 
shorter form of " delivery," from liber, free. 
So in old law it meant freedom or right 
conveyed as " livery of seisin," nearly equiva- 
lent to right of possession. The livery of 
servants is that distinctive dress which they 
wear as belonging to a certain household, 
and which their master does not require 
them to procure by purchase, but grants 
them freely, that is, gratuitously. 

Lord and Lady, are derived from the Saxon 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 65 

hlafy bread, loaf, and weardian, to keep, ward, 
or guard. They were the stay or supporters 
of the family and the dependants. 

Luncheon, seems to be for "nuncheon," or 
te noonshun," the midday meal of labourers 
in the shade — shunning the heat of noon. 



f ANURE, is a contraction from the 
French manceuvrer, whence our word 
" manoeuvre," and meant at the first 
merely the manual tillage of the ground. 
Usage has subsequently restricted it to the 
application of fertilizing substances to the 
soil, which does not specifically enter into 
the etymology of the word. 

Marshal. Old German marah, a horse, which 
survives in our word, " mare," and " scale," a 
servant. The marshal was originally the 
keeper of the horse, which he fed, groomed, 
and shod, for his military master. So in 
French marechal, and in Spanish mariscal> 
have the two-fold meaning of marshal and 

F 



66 COMMON WORDS WITH 

farrier. The marshal became in time the 
confidential servant of the lord, with inferior 
servants under him, and the title extended to 
certain legislative officers in courts of law, 
royal households, and the army ; hence, the 
verb " to marshal," applied to persons rather 
than objects, meaning to order, or set in 
array. 

Martinet. A formal disciplinarian, especially 
in military matters. So called from an 
officer of that name in the army of Louis 
XIV. 

Meddle. This is plainly derived from the 
* Latin medius, and is another form of the Eng- 
lish " middle ;" to meddle being impertinently 
to put oneself in the middle, between things 
or persons. But the Latin medius does not 
supply the latter syllable ; for this we are 
indebted to the common termination of Ger- 
man infinitives, eln. So mitteln, or ver- 
mitteln, in German is mediare, to mediate ; 
and to mediate unduly is to meddle. 

Mettle. This word is noticeable as being 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 67 

identical with "metal/' and signified, first, 
the temper or spirit, and secondly, such tem- 
per and spirit as were animated by courage 
and right sensibility. 

So Shakespeare, " Gentlemen of brave 
mettle ; " and Milton, " A spirit of the 
greatest size and divinest mettle." 

Mew (verb), to confine. 

The word mue in French is a noun mean- 
ing change of feathers, from muer, to moult, 
connected with the Latin mutare, to change. 
The " mew " was the place of confinement and 
quiet for hawks during the moulting-season. 
Wordsworth speaks of "violets in their secret 
mews," that is, retreats. The word " mews," 
meaning stables, is the same. 

Mizen. A nautical term for the third or hind- 
most mast of a three-masted vessel ; from 
mezzano, in the middle, mezzo, Italian for 
middle. So the mizen-mast would be the 
middle mast of the three ; but this it is not. 
It appears that the " mizen" or main -mast of 
the older vessel would bear relatively the 



68 COMMON WORDS WITH 

same position to the steersman as that which 
came to be called the " mizen" when in later 
and larger vessels the masts were multiplied. 

Muscle; as the " muscle " of the arm. Etymo- 
logists are singularly divided as to the origin 
of this common word. According to some 
it is so called from its likeness to the mollusk 
called a "muscle," musculus, from its apparent 
peeping out of its bivalves. If not mediately 
from musculns in this sense, it would be 
from the same word directly ; and the idea 
would be suggested by the likeness of the 
movements of the muscles to those of a 
mouse under some flexible covering. 

Mushroom, is an English corruption of the 
French mousseron, from mousse, moss, as 
indicating the moist nature of the ground in 
which mushrooms are found. 

Mutiny. Old French meute ; modern French 
has emeute ; Latin motus, from movere, to 
move ; an out-move, or outburst of insub- 
ordination. 

The Spanish has motin and amotinar, for 
a mutiny, and to rise in mutiny. 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 69 



I AMESAKE, is, first, one named after, 
for regard to, or for the sake of, 
another; and afterwards came to 

mean one bearing the same name, though 

only as a coincidence. 

Nausea, from the Greek i/auc, a ship, meant 
originally sea-sickness, and with its deriva- 
tives nauseous and nauseate has been ex- 
tended to mean a feeling of physical sickness, 
and also strong moral or emotional dislike. 

Nice. Latin nescius, ignorant. The "nice" 
man was at the first a simpleton ; so Chaucer 
says, "wise and nothing nice," that is, no 
wise ignorant. How did it come over to 
its meaning of accurate or fastidious, which 
seems to imply knowledge and taste rather 
than ignorance ? Not by being confounded 
with the Saxon nese, but because the diffi- 
dence of ignorance bore a resemblance to the 
fastidious slowness of discernment. It is 
reflexively that the quality of the person has 



70 COMMON WORDS WITH 

passed over to the thing; once the chooser 
was nice, now the thing is chosen as being 
"nice." 

Noise. Such a kind or degree of sound as is 
obnoxious to the ear. Noxa from nocere, to 
hurt. In its etymology (C hurt " generally, 
and restricted in its signification as above. 

Nostril. Nose-thyrl; thyrl is Saxon for a 
long narrow passage ; compare the old street 
in Oxford called the Turl. Thyrl is con- 
nected with €C drill/ 5 as in the phrase, to drill 
a hole. A " nostril " then is the hole in the 
nose which Nature has drilled. 

Nuisance. From the Old French noisir, Latin 
nocere, to hurt ; in Italian nocenza means an- 
noyance, and looks at first sight as if it had 
the same derivation. But see Annoy- 
ance. 



BEISANCE, is the same word as 
" obedience." As in some other in- 
stances, both the direct Latin form 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 71 

and the French derivative are in use, but 
are made distinct in meaning. Obeisance 
is the outward sign of obedience, or 
deference. 

Obliterate, is often connected directly with 
linere, litum, to smear, as if to obliterate were 
to smear out or efface ; but its direct deri- 
vation is litera, a letter, so that to obliterate 
is in the first instance to efface writing in 
particular, and secondarily to efface generally. 
It is true that the root of litera is linere, 
because some of the earliest writing would 
be on substances smeared so as to receive it ; 
for instance, the waxen tablets of the Romans. 

Obsequies. "Funeral rites" express the literal, 
as the adjective "obsequious" expresses the 
metaphorical, aspect of the Latin obsequi, to 
wait upon ; for as " obsequiousness " is the 
readiness, often the over-readiness to follow 
the dictates of another, so obsequies consist 
in literally following him to the grave. 

Ogle ; to eye askance, or look at furtively. 



72 COMMON WORDS WITH 

The root is oculus, an eye, and the word is 
developed more plainly by the augeln, from 
auge, an eye. 

Ogre. An imaginary monster of an unearthly 
character. 

Orcus, the lower world, or, when per- 
sonified, the God of the infernal regions. 

Opportunity. Latin ob, over against, and 

partus, a harbour. 

An opportunity is something which occurs 
. in as timely a way as does the port for a 

storm-tost ship to run into. 

Ovation ; a triumph : but, according to 
Roman customs, of the second order. At 
the triumph oxen were sacrificed, but the 
sheep (ovis) when the victorious general on 
his return home was accorded an ovation ; 
hence the use of the term in the sense of 
(e triumph." 

Overture, has nothing to do with the word 
over, but with " overt." In French ouvrir 
is to begin, part, ouvert ; an overt act in 
English is one voluntarily undertaken or 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 73 

commenced, with a will and purpose, and 
therefore consequently in a public way. 
The root is the Latin operire, opertus, to open, 
and stands opposed to covert, from co-operire, 
part, co-opertus, whence covert. To make an 
overture is to be the first to propose ; and 
the overture of an opera is the opening, 
commencement, or prelude. 



AGAN. An inhabitant of the pagi 
or villages, as distinguished from 
the inhabitants of cities, which were 
the centres of Christianity and the seats of 
bishops. The residence of the bishop with 
his staff of missionary clergy and cathe- 
dral made the city; issuing from the cities 
went the clergy, preaching the Gospel to the 
villagers or rustics, who, being less within 
the sphere of Christian influence, were re- 
garded as masses to be converted, under the 
name of Pagans. 

Palliate, from Latin pallium, a cloak, is to 
hide as with a cloak, to screen or suppress, 




<4 COMMON WORDS WITH 

to mitigate or excuse. It is a Latinism for 
the Saxon verb " to cloke," as in the English 
Liturgy, "that we should not dissemble nor 
cloke them." 

Palsy, is an English contraction of the Greek 
paralysis, from napd, by the side, and \vsiv, 
to loose or disable. It is a weakening, suspen- 
sion, or entire destruction of the functions of 
voluntary motion and sensation — the muscles 
and nerves. 

Paltry, is from the German palte, pidte, a rag 
or tatter. As rags and tatters in his clothing 
indicate the beggar, so paltry is nearly sy- 
nonymous with beggarly, with this distinction, 
that beggarly is in the first instance morally 
paltry, whereas paltry is in the first instance 
materially beggarly. So it would be more 
strictly correct to say beggarly demeanour, 
and a paltry exhibition ; in common parlance 
the epithets are interchanged. 

Pattern ; Latin pair onus, a patron, guardian, 
or guide; one consequently whom we are 
bound in some measure to follow. Thus 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 75 

"pattern" would be used in its primary sense 
when applied to persons as a pattern of be- 
nevolence^ and in its secondary sense as an 
artistic model. 

Peculiar, characteristically belonging to, or il- 
lustrative of, the individual, is from peculiaris, 
a Roman term for that which is a man's own, 
— the allowed savings, for instance, of a slave. 
Like pecunia, money, its root is probably 
pecics, cattle, which was the earliest form of 
property, and for which money was after- 
wards substituted in exchange. When Jacob 
kept his father-in-law's cattle on the con- 
dition that he was to have a certain proportion 
of the increase of the flock, he received what 
became in the exact sense of the words his 
peculiar property. 

Pellitory, the commonest plant that grows 
on old English ruins, is a corruption of the 
Latin parietaria, from paries, a wall ; the wall- 
plant. It is formed with more attention to 
classic propriety than is usual among botani- 
cal terms. As murus is the exterior wall of 



76 COMMON WORDS WITH 

cities, so paries is the interior wall of houses 
or castles. It is especially remarkable and 
touching to see the pellitory growing among 
the inner ruins of the ancient castle, on the 
walls of the chapel or the banquet-room. 

Pencil, was at the first a " paint-brush/' and, 
being a tuft of hair like a tail, was called 
penecillus, a little tail, whence te pencil." 

Pension — pendere, pensio, Latin, to weigh, 
a weighing out — is a word which carries us 
back to remote times, when a currency 
having succeeded to a system of barter, the 
distinction was not yet so distinctly marked 
as now between the value of coinage and the 
weight of metal ; large sums of money were 
originally weighed out : so the shekel of the 
Hebrews was a weight before it became a 
coin; so the Romans, when their city was 
in the hands of the Gauls, weighed out their 
ransom in scales, and the arrogant Brennus, 
throwing his victorious sword into the oppo- 
site scale, aggravated the " pension " of their 
ransom. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 77 

Pensive, is a very picturesque word. Pensave 
is the frequentative of pendere, to weigh. 
Pensee in French, a thought, the result of 
mental weighing. A pensive figure or atti- 
tude is that in which the appearance of the 
person bespeaks that he is holding as it were 
an invisible balance of reflection. The idea 
is nearly akin to that of the word " ponder," 
ponderare, to weigh, from pondus (itself de- 
rived from pendere, to weigh), a weight. 

Pilgrim — Latin peregrinus, a foreigner, — one 
who wanders to foreign lands. In Italian 
the Latin r is commonly changed into 7, and 
peregrinus becomes pellegrino, whence " pil- 
grim." 

Pinion, comes through the French from 
the Latin pinna, penna, a feather or wing. 
Compare English "pen." 

Pinnacle, is from the same root as pinion ; 
Latin pinnaculum, from pinna, a feather : a 
member by which a building is as it were 
plumed off aloft. 



78 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Pittance, a small allowance or dole : from 
the Low Latin word pittantia, for pietantia, 
from pius, pietas, piety or pity ; a gift of 
Christian compassion : afterwards any small 
donation. 

Plagiary, Plagiarist, Plagiarism, Pla- 
giarize, are derived from the Latin plagium, 
which was the sin of kidnapping children, 
and especially young slaves. 

The plagiarist was at first the purloiner 
of the book or manuscript, which he pub- 
lished as his own ; afterwards the word was 
extended to mean one w r ho quoted from the 
writings of another without acknowledging the 
source from which he drew. The metaphor 
seems to be based upon the idea of books as 
being the servants of an author's purpose, 
or the offspring of his mind. 

Poison, comes to us through the French from 
the Latin potio, a drink. A poison is a deadly 
potion. 

Poltroon. Pollice truncus, maimed of the 
thumb, which in times of conscription was 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 79 

mutilated as a disqualification for serving in 
the wars; and though many other reasons 
might exist for such disinclination, it was 
imputed to cowardice, and poltroon means a 
coward. 

Pommel, to beat or bruize ; properly to strike 
with a knobbed instrument, or the fist. 

The root is the Latin pomum, an apple, 
used metaphorically for a knob or protuber- 
ance. So in heraldry a " cross pommee" is a 
cross knobbed at the ends. In Italian poma 
delta spada is the pommel of the sword. 
Hence to beat generally. It is commonly 
spelt " pummel." 

Precarious. Preces, prayer, precari, to pray. 
Of all blessings those are most certain which 
come from the unalterable benevolence of 
the Creator, and those most uncertain which 
hang upon the good- will of man. Who can 
calculate upon the humour of the great and 
powerful when a petition has to be presented 
to them? Hence precarious, that is, depend- 
ing upon the will of others to grant in return 



80 COMMON WORDS WITH 

for our own prayers or petitions, has passed 
into a very proverb of uncertainty; and 
precarious in common usage means critical 
or perilous. 

Prevaricate. Varicare is from varus, bandy- 
legged; so that to prevaricate is literally 
to walk with a shuffling, shambling gait, and 
metaphorically to deal with words after a 
loose and shuffling manner. 

Prolix. Tediously and ineffectually length- 
ened out, as a prolix speech. Pro, out, and 
laxusj loose or flowing. It expresses the 
weak side of fluent, the one flowing with 
vigour and the other a dribbling shallowness 
of talk. 

Promulgate, is for provulgate by a corrupt 
change of the v into m. The etymology is 
more strictly adhered to in the word u di- 
vulge" of kindred meaning. To promulgate is 
to make public or common, from vulgas, the 
common public. 

Purchase ; French povrchasser, to seek after. 
Compare the English "chase." To purchase is 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 81 

primarily to desire eagerly and strive 
to obtain ; but inasmuch as all objects of 
desire cost something to procure, to' purchase 
hence came to mean to buy. So Berners, 
using the word in its earlier sense, says, 
" Duke John of Brabant purchased (that is, 
desired) greatly that the Earl of Flanders 
should have his daughter in marriage." 



]UAINT. Latin comptus, participle 
ofcomere, to trim. Quaint, old French 
cointe, meant at the first neatly and 
trimly arranged. Afterwards it was applied 
to the style of speech as indicating the nicety 
and refinement of learning, whence flowed 
the meanings of archaic and curious. Like 
curious, it expresses the idea of recondite and 
odd, as " quaint erudition," " a quaint figure." 
That which has passed away, and was yet in 
its way useful or graceful, retaining or ex- 
hibiting interest and excellence, yet of a by- 
gone character, is said to be quaint, when 
we view it from our own point of view. 




82 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Quarantine. A ship arriving in port and 
suspected of being infected by contagious 
disease, or coming from certain countries 
liable to such diseases, was originally pro- 
hibited intercourse with the shore for forty 
days; whence quarantine, from the Italian 
quaranta, a corruption of the Latin quadra- 
ginta,£ovty ; the designation has been retained, 
though the period of the inhibition may be 
indefinite. 

Quarrel, is from the Latin querela, a com- 
. plaint; queri, to complain. So a sense of 

wrong or cause of complaint lies at the root 

of every quarrel. 

Quit. Latin quietare ; quies, quiet. To quit is 
to leave a place quiet, and in usage implies 
an intention of not returning to it. Com- 
pare Acquit. 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 83 



\ AC Y. As racy flavour of wine, or racy 
humour, is from "race," meaning 
family or breed, so racy is having 
the characteristic flavour of origin, savouring 
of the source; like generous, that is, as applied 
to flavour, rich and indicating a distinctive 
nature and excellence. 

Raiment, is an abbreviation of " arraiment," 
from the French arraier, which again is from 
the Gothic raidjan,to make ready; so in Saxon 
gercede, trappings. 

Rally, to bring together into order after con- 
fusion, as to rally troops. As Spenser spelt the 
word " re-allie," making it of three syllables : 

"Before they could new counsels re-allie ;" 
there can be little doubt that it is from 
re-alligare, to bind once again together. 

Rascal, Saxon for a worthless lean deer, 
metaphorically used for a worthless fellow. 
So Shakespeare, " Horns ! the noblest deer 
hath them as huge as the rascal." 



84 COMMON WOEDS WITH 

Ream. The printer's ream is twenty-one and 
a-half quires. The word exists in different 
forms in modern European languages, and 
the root is undoubtedly the Greek olp^^og, 
number. 

Reprieve. Latin reprobare. It has not, how- 
ever, the sense of reprove, which is to prove a 
charge back upon a person, and so to rebuke 
or censure him, but to send him back for a 
second proof or trial. As the word is now 
used it expresses rather the remission of an 
original sentence than the purpose of a second 
trial. 

Respite, from the Latin respicere, to look 
back, expresses another aspect of the word 
respect ; for as respect and regard indicate the , 
honour or esteem which induce us to look back 
on those so worthy of notice, respite expresses 
the delay of time occupied in doing so; hence 
to relieve by a pause or interval, of rest. 

Revel, noisy merriment and feasting ; at first 
such feasting kept up into the late night. 



CUKIOUS DERIVATIONS. 85 

French reveiller, to awake, and this from 
the Latin vigilare, to watch. Compare the 
English " vigilant/' and " vigil." 

Ribbon, or Ribband. 

Three derivations are produced for this 
word. 

1. Rib band or ript band, a fillet or narrow 
split band. 

2. Rubent, Old French, from the Latin 
rubens, from rubere, to be red. 

3. Re and bende or band ; such a circlet 
as can be easily bent or replicated. 

Rival. Rival is from rivus, a stream. Rivals 
are dwellers upon the banks of the same 
stream ; those who had nothing but the stream 
to divide them. So, according to Trench, 
they would naturally contend for their water- 
rights; but it is also conceivable that, as 
rivers form a natural boundary between tribes 
and nationalities, the hostile feeling of the 
rival tribes or nations may have been illus- 
trated by, but in no way flowing out of, the 
narrow water-line which separated them. 




86 COMMON WORDS WITH 



AD, had formerly the sense of " set/' 
that is, serious, sedate. It is, indeed, 
only a shorter form of sedate. The 
quiet of seriousness has given way to the 
quiet of melancholy in the apprehension of 
the word. 

Salary, a fixed stipend, is from the Latin 
solarium, from sal, salt ; salt-money, given as 
part of their pay. This is the origin of the 
slang use of salt in the sense of money. 

Sample, a specimen of work or goods, is a 
shorter form of example, from the Latin ex- 
emplum, a portion shown as an example or 
pattern of the rest. 

Sarcasm, Greek <rccp%,* crupxog, flesh, is biting, 
tearing language, as if lacerating, or seeking 
to lacerate, the very flesh. 

Saunter ; to rove, or walk listlessly. In cru- 
sading times it was common for persons to 
beg alms, roving about the country, on the 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 87 

pretence that they meant aller a la Sainte 
Terre, to go to the Holy Land; hence to 
saunter. 

Savage. The French sauvage, taken with the 
old Italian word salvatico, points out that the 
a has been affected by corruption in this 
word. Salvatico is for silvatico or sylvatico, 
from silva or sylva, a wood. Savage is, 
therefore, in the first place, living wild in 
the woods ; for as the soil in a natural or un- 
titled state grows up in wood, so savage or 
uncivilized man seeks natural shelter in the 
wood. 

Scaffold, is a word of obscure derivation. 
Thus much is clear, that it is the same word 
as catafalque, a temporary structure of car- 
pentry used especially at funerals. The old 
French was eschafaut, the modern French 
echafaut, the Italian catafalco, from which 
the French have derived a second word, 
catafalque. For catafalque Webster gives 
the derivation catar, old Spanish, to view 
(perhaps for captare oculis), andfalco for the 



88 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Italian palco, a beam, a raised wooden struc- 
ture commanding a view. 

Scrupulous. Scrupulus in Latin was a 
small sharp stone. The word was afterwards 
used to express a measure of weight, the 
twenty-fourth part of an ounce. Hence to 
be scrupulous is to pay minute, nice, and 
exact attention to matters often in themselves 
of small weight. 

Season. When we think how widely this 
term is applied in moral meanings it is inte- 
resting to recur to its primary and simple 
sense of sowing, or seed-time. The season 
was in the first instance that turn of the year 
which presented itself to man in the most 
critical aspect, the time of putting in the 
seed. Satio, a sowing, from severe, part. 
satusy to sow. 

Seminary. Latin seminarium, a seed-plot or 
plantation; semen, seed. When an educa- 
tional institution is called a seminary the idea 
expressed is that of young and tender plants 
cultivated, trained, and nurtured. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 89 

Sentinel. Sentina, a sink or the hold of a 
ship. The sentinel was the man whose duty- 
it was to watch the influx of water into the 
hold and give alarm accordingly. Trans- 
ferred from the navy -to the army, the sentinel 
was he who was to give alarm on the occasion 
of any encroachment upon the camp on the 
part of the enemy. 

Sergeant, or Serjeant, the name of an 
officer, civil, military, and legal, is the 
Latin serviens, or servant; the essence of 
the word being delegated service. 

Sexton, is a corruption of sacristan, from sacra, 
the sacred things of a church. The office of 
the sacristan was to take care of the vessels 
of the service and the vestments of the clergy. 
Since the Reformation his duties in this 
respect seem to have been so far lightened as 
to leave him time to dig the graves, and the 
term sexton now means grave-digger; but 
this is a modern application of the term. 

Shelter, is to shielder, by the usual change of 



90 COMMON WORDS WITH 

the d into t, to protect as with a shield. 
German schilden, to protect. 

Slander, has come to us through the French 
esclandre, from the Greek (rxoLySaXov, scandal. 
The scandal was a stumbling-block in the 
road. The Latin scandalum was also used 
for the stick or string in a trap ; hence, the 
scandal was in the first place the offence, or 
occasion of tripping. The word offence, 
from oh and fendere, to strike the foot against, 
being of kindred meaning, and was afterwards 
used of the social effect of such scandal. 

Slave. This word is a record of the contest 
between the Teutonic and Sclavonic or Sla- 
vonic races. The word sclave or slave in its 
native import had no signification of this 
kind, which was imposed upon it by their 
conquerors. If a German captured a Russian, 
Hungarian, or Bohemian, he would call 
him a sclave or slave ; whence the notion of 
servitude attached to that which was origin- 
ally a title of national honour. 



CUKIOTJS DERIVATIONS. 91 

Smooth, is remarkable as being, so to speak, a 
word of art applied even to natural appear- 
ances. It is the participle of the old verb 
"smeeth," connected with^smite" and "smith," 
and carries us back to times anterior to the 
invention of the plane and other modern con- 
trivances, when a smooth surface would be 
generally produced by attrition and blows. 
In the case of the precious metals such an 
effect so produced is still preferred for works 
of art, as in wrought tankards and the like. 

Soar. French essorer, essor, a flight. The 
Italian sorare, taken in connection with these 
French terms, points to the omission of the 
syllable ex as a prefix. Compare straniero, 
from extraneus, a stranger. The Latin words 
would therefore be ex aurare, from aura, the 
air, to rise higher and higher out of one 
stratum of the atmosphere into another. 

Sober. The abstruse Latin word bria, a cup, 
gave their roots to the two words sobrius 
and ebrius. 



92 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Sobrius would be se or sine briis, abstaining 
from the cups. 

Ebrius, e briis, inebriated by the cups. 

Sojourn. The Latin elements which com- 
posed this word are best seen in the Italian 
forms, sotto and giorno. See Journal. Sub 
and diurnus, under, or during, the day. So 
a sojourn would be a temporary stay or rest 
for the day, with the intention of prosecuting 
the journey at its close. Compare here the 
word journey, which is the day's march, 
having the same derivation as sojourn and 
journal. 

Spice. From the Latin species, indicating the 
care of panelling drugs and the value set upon 
those of a particular kind. We may infer 
from the fabrication of such a term how strong 
a metaphorical substratum would be afforded 
for such a term as garbling, or the mixture 
of the different spices by adulteration or 
illicit selection. See Garble. 

Stain. This word is for "distain," which the old 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 93 

English writers used. Distain is the French 
deteindre, and this form dis, and ting ere, to 
tinge. A stain is thus a discolouration as dis- 
tinguished from a dye. 

Sterling, is used as an epithet equivalent to 
solid, genuine, unadulterated. The word is 
an abbreviated form of Easterling, meaning 
one who inhabited or came from countries 
situated to the Eastward. Here we cannot do 
better than quote two sentences of Holling- 
shed and Camden given by Webster in his 
Dictionary. " Easterling," says he, "was 
once the popular name of German traders in 
England, whose money was of the purest 
quality." Then comes the quotation from 
Hollingshed : " Certain merchants of Nor- 
waie, Denmarke, and of others those parties 
called Ostomanni, or as in our vulgar lan- 
guage we tearme them Easterlings, because 
they be East in respect of us." Then follows 
a quotation from Camden: "In the time 
of King Richard the First monie coined 
in the east parts of Germany began to be of 



94 COMMON WOKDS WITH 

especiall request in England for the puritie 
thereof, and was called Easterling monie, as 
all the inhabitants of those parts were called 
Easterlings, and shortly after some of that 
countrie skillfull in mint matters and allaies 
were sent for into this realm to bring the 
coine to perfection, which since that time 
was called of them sterling for Easterling." 

Stranger. The initial e of the Latin extraneus, 
foreign, from extra, without, has been dropped 
in English in the case of this word, as also 
in the Italian form straniero. On the other 
hand, in the French etranger, the s has been 
dropped, and the e retained. So we have 
e, ex, extra, extraneus, stranger. 

Supercilious, is literally knitting of the eye- 
brows in pride. Cilium, the eye-lid, super- 
cilium, the eye-brow. Contemptuously 
proud. 

Supple, which now means, generally, pliant, 
and is applied to inanimate substances, comes 
through the French plier, to fold, from the 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 95 

Latin plicare. Supple is thus easily bending 
the limbs, the fingers, or the knees. So we 
have to supplicate, meaning to entreat, from 
the underbending of the knees in prayer; and 
connected are such words as pliant, suppliant, 
supplicate. The Latin supplex is more dis- 
cernibly perpetuated in the Italian soffice. 

Surgeon. A corruption of chirurgeon, from 
X^§9 th e hand, and tpysw, to work. The 
original form is preserved in the Italian 
chirurgOj and the French chirurgien. 

Sycophant. Greek g-vkov, a fig, and (pulvtw, 
to show. The Athenian sycophant was the 
informer against those who unlawfully traded 
in the common market-article of figs, and 
curried favour by giving such information. 
The word is now used of any one who con- 
descends to mean arts to obtain favour, even 
if it be nothing meaner than systematic flat- 
tery. 




96 COMMON WORDS WITH 

5 ABBY, as a familiar epithet of 
" cats/ 5 is the French talis, derived 
from the Persian retabi, a rich 

watered silk, and expresses the wavy bars 

upon their coats. 

Tally. French tattler, to cut. The " old 
tally " was a stick cut or notched with a cer- 
tain number of notches, according to the 
articles sold, kept in the possession of the 
vendor, and corresponding with another kept 
by the purchaser ; hence the verb to tally 
meaning to match or correspond. 

Tamper, is a modification of " temper." As 
temper is to mould or moderate with a stead- 
fast purpose, so to tamper is to meddle with 
lightly or wantonly. 

Tawdry. Showy, without intrinsic value or 
elegance. Corrupted from St. Audrey or 
St. Ethelreda, at whose fair, in the Isle of 
Ely, on the Saint's day of the 17th of Octo- 
ber, finery of all kinds was sold. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 97 

Tidy, now means neat or well arranged, but 
this is in no way part of its etymology. It 
is derived from the old English word " tide," 
meaning time, as, for instance, eventide, and 
is closely connected with the German zeit. 
So tidy is zeitig, timely or seasonable. In this 
sense Tusser uses the word : "If weather be 
fair and tidy." But as all things exist in time 
and space, there is a vital analogy between 
that which is in right time and that which is in 
right place, the seasonable and the orderly. 

Tinsel. French etincelle, a spark ; ornament 
of a cheap. and showy character, picked out 
with spangles. 

Token, is from the Saxon tcecan, to teach, that 
which teaches or represents. 

Trade, is conveyance and reconveyance of 
goods, from the French traite, and this from 
the Latin trahere, tractus, to carry. This 
strict sense of the term, now that the word 
has extended to more than mere barter, is 
often expressed by a phrase which would be 
otherwise a redundancy, — " a carrying trade." 
H 



98 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Tragedy. Greek rpccyog, a goat, and w<W, a 
song or recitation ; a goat-song. Thus far 
the case is plain, but the question is what 
connection the goat had with the transaction. 
In the early days of Greek history, it is said 
that Thespis and his band of strolling players 
acted from waggons as their theatre, be- 
smearing their faces with vine-lees for masks, 
and that this was the germ of the Greek 
tragedy. A goat may have been sacrificed 
on such occasions, or it may have been the 
guerdon of the best reciter. 

Trammel, is now used for almost any kind of 
shackle or impediment. In Low Latin the 
* word is found in different forms, of which 
one tremaclum seems to be the root; it is 
derived from tres maculce, three spots, or 
bright-coloured pieces of cloth which would 
be attached to different parts of a net for the 
double purpose of attracting the fish and in- 
dicating the position of the net. 

Trance, is the Latin transitus, a going off or 



CUKIOUS DERIVATIONS. 99 

beyond. The idea is expressed in the common 
phrase "he went off" in a fit, and, like the 
word ecstasy, implies the impression of a 
temporary and partial departure of the spirit 
from the body. 

Treason. Low Latin traditio, traitorship or 
betrayal. The idea which lies at the root of 
the word is, that the honour and safety of 
the state and the sovereign is a trust reposed 
in the citizen and subject. 

Treasure. A transmutation, not at the first 
very obvious, of the Greek Qri<rocvpog, and 
the Latin thesaurus, meaning the same thing. 

Tribulation. Tribulum, from terere, to rub 
or grind, is mentioned by Virgil in his list 
of Roman implements of agriculture. It 
was a kind of sledge or heavy roller, which 
did the work of the English flail by hard 
grinding and wearing instead of repeated 
light strokes. The metaphor may have been 
adopted or welcomed by Christians as ex- 
pressing, under a rustic and therefore familiar 



100 COMMON WORDS WITH 

metaphor, the moral purpose of trouble, 
namely, the yielding of the fruit of patience. 

Trite. Common place; the participle tritus 
of the verb tero, to wear, belonging to the 
oft-trodden highway of thought as distin- 
guished from the new paths of discovery, 
or the untrodden fields of knowledge. 

Trivial. Trivium, tres vice, a place where 
three roads meet. So a trivial thing may be 
that which is common-place or of every-day 
and everywhere occurrence. It ought, 
however, to be remembered that trivium had 
in mediaeval times a peculiar meaning, ex- 
pressive of the course of three arts, namely, 
grammar, logic, and rhetoric, which formed 
the common curriculum of the universities, 
as distinguished from the quadrivium, which 
added four more, namely, music, arithmetic, 
geometry, and astronomy. Trivial things 
may have been sometimes taken to mean 
such as occur ordinarily, or in the common 
course, as distinguished from higher or more 
abstruse things. 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 101 

Trophy, is now* used in the general sense of 
evidence of a victory, especially something 
which has been carried off in spoil from the 
enemy. The word is Greek, from t^ttem, 
to turn, the trophy being a monument of the 
defeat, or turning to flight of the hostile 
army. 

Trouble, is, through the French, from turbu- 
lare, which is from turba, a crowd. Trouble 
is thus connected through turba with disturb 
and disturbance; so that trouble is moral, 
social, or political disturbance. A crowd of 
conflicting or disordered feelings constitutes 
mental trouble. Compare the adjectives 
turbulent and turbulence. A turbulent 
crowd is a crowd which behaves as crowds 
commonly do. Turbidity is physical turbu- 
lence, as turbulence is social turbidity. 

Turnip. Saxon nape, Latin napus, with the 
prefix turn signifying turned or rounded. 
" Turn-nape " of old spelt " turnep," now 
" turnip." 




102 COMMON WOEDS WITH 



UMBRAGE. This word is sometimes 
used in the simple sense of offence, 
as "to take umbrage." Properly 
umbrage is the offence taken against the 
overshadowing influence of a neighbour of 
greater standing, and expresses the natural 
resentment of one who does not endure to 
be thrown into the shade by another. Urn- 
bragium, a supposed Latin word, from umbra, 
a shade. 

Urchin. French Mrisson, Italian riccio, 
Latin erinaceus ; first meant a hedge-hog; 
then a mischievous sprite, fairies being sup- 
posed to appear sometimes in the form of 
hedge-hogs ; then a mischievous or worthless 
child. So Shakespeare: 

" Like urchins, ouphes (or elves) and fairies." 
As urchin was used for a mischievous, so oaf 
(ouph, auph, or elf) meant a senseless, crea- 
ture, a changeling substituted by a fairy for a 
more "proper" child. The same kind of 
association is seen in the word imp. It 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 103 

must be remembered, however, that both 
imp, which also meant graft, and brat were 
originally not terms of reproach. So Bacon : 
" Those most virtuous and goodly young 
imps, the Duke of Sussex and his brother." 
And Gascoigne : 

" O Israel, O household of the Lord ! 
O Abraham's brats ! O brood of blessed seed." 

Usher (noun and verb). The old form was 
huisher, from the French huissier, from an old 
French word meaning a door. It appears 
curiously in the Italian uscire, to go out of 
doors. 

The usher would stand at the door to 
meet and introduce visitors; hence the 
verb " to usher into the presence." So the 
usher of a school, as having the ranging of 
the pupils and ordering their going out and 
coming in. 




104 COMMON WORDS WITH 



'AITLT. Latin volvere, part, volutus, 
to roll or turn. A rounding or 
turning of the roof, or any chamber 
having a stone roof so turned. So to vault 
is to jump over an object so as to describe 
such a turn or outline by the movement of 
the body. In Italian the word volta, meaning 
time, turn, or opportunity, has the same 
derivation, as urU altra volta, another time. 

Vaunt. To vaunt is to make vain display of 
anything one possesses. Latin vanus, from 
which was formed the Low Latin verb vani- 
tare, to exhibit from motives of vanity. 

Velvet. Chaucer writes " velouette," Spenser 
"vellet," Ben Jonson "vellute." These 
must have sprung from the Latin villosus, 
hairy or woolly. 

Vengeance, is the same word as vindication, 
from the Latin vindicare, to vindicate, the 
one being directly derived from the Latin, 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 105 

the other coming through the medium of the 
French. Vengeance is the vindication of 
one's rights by retaliation. 

Venison, which in modern English is restricted 
to the flesh of the deer, had of old a wider 
meaning. It is used, for instance, in the 
story of Jacob and Esau in the English 
Bible, in the wider sense of any flesh which 
was obtained in hunting, and fit for food. 
The derivation is venatio, hunting, from 
venari, to hunt. By a common change the 
t of the participial noun has been changed 
into s, as malison from maledictio, benison 
from benedictio, orison from oratio. 

Villain, is one of the social terms of the Eng- 
lish language, and there are many in which 
the tendency has been fully developed of 
making the virtues aristocratic, and infusing 
a notion of moral turpitude into terms ex- 
pressive of humble condition. The " villanus" 
was originally no more than one attached to 
the villa, farm, or feudal estate. The villains 



106 COMMON WORDS WITH 

were according to Blackstone of two kinds : 
the villains regardant and the villains in 
gross; the former were attached to the 
estate, the latter to the person of the lord, 
who might therefore transfer them. 

Vixen. A spiteful woman ; literally a she fox. 
Vixen being for a foxen." 

Volley, from the French volee, and the verb 
voler, to fly, implied at the fi^st a simulta- 
neous discharge of arrows, to which the idea 
of flight naturally applies. Compare also, as 
connected with flight, the French Jleche, an 
arrow, whence the Norman English name of 
fletcher, a maker of arrows. Since the in- 
vention of gunpowder the word has come to 
mean a simultaneous discharge of fire-arms, 
and the word volley conveys the impression 
of combined reports, which did not of old 
belong to it. 

Vouchsafe, meaning to grant. To vouch is 
from vocare, Latin vox, vocis, to call, to call 
out, or proclaim, to undertake in an audible 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 107 

voice and in the presence of others, as " to 
vouch for the truth of a thing." So to 
vouchsafe is to proclaim publicly that one 
will hold another safe from harm. But as 
none but a superior in power and authority- 
could do this, to vouchsafe necessarily im- 
plied an act of considerate condescension on 
the part of a superior to an inferior. Hence 
vouchsafe came to mean to grant in such a 
way as a superior only could do. 



JAGES, now used in the plural. The 
wage, after the analogy of guard 
and ward, guile and vile, with 
others, was the gage or pledge, that which 
the employer pledged himself, or engaged to 
pay to the employed. 

Waist, is a curious word, as being the same 
* as waste. The waist is that part of the 
figure which wastes in the sense of dimi- 
nishes. 




108 COMMON WORDS WITH 

Walk. The Saxon wealcan meant to roll ; 
whence wealcere, a fuller of cloth. To walk 
was first to full cloth, then to roll leisurely 
along; so the surname "Walker" meant not 
an ambulator, but a fuller, as in " Percy's 
Reliques : " 

" She cursed the weaver and the walker, 
The cloth that they had wrought." 

Wan, is commonly taken to mean pale, but 
this is a derived sense, the first being that 
of waning, wan being for waned, the parti- 
ciple passive of to wane ; but inasmuch as 
the waning or attenuation of the body is 
accompanied by pallor, the idea of leanness 
has given way to that of paleness. 

Want, is another aspect of the foregoing word 
wane. A waned condition, the result of the 
absence or privation of what the nature of a 
thing requires; hence used in the general 
sense of absence as opposed to supply. 

Warrior. A very common change is that of 
the French gu into the English w; the letter 



CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. 109 

w was not in the Latin alphabet, so that gu 
is its representative^ Gulielmus for William. 
Compare guard and ward, guile and wile, 
guarantee and warranty, and in the present 
case guerre in French with the English war, 
and guerrier with warrior. 

Wealth, is connected with the Saxon weal; 
so we retain the phrase " for weal or woe," 
meaning for well or ill; thus wealth was 
originally simply prosperity : so we pray in 
the English Liturgy that it may be granted 
to the Queen " in health and wealth long to 
live," that is, in health and happiness, not in 
health and riches. But as in Latin beatus 
meant both blessed and rich, and oxfiioq the 
same in Greek; so there is a tendency shown 
in all languages to express the idea that 
money is the source of true happiness. 

Window. In old English the word was spelt 
windore and windor ; the etymology of the 
word, therefore, is wind-door, an aperture for 
ventilation and afterwards for light. There 



110 COMMON WORDS WITH 

seems to lurk in this word a reminiscence of 
what is of course obvious on consideration, 
that before the invention of such substances 
as glass, or the use of horn for the purpose, 
the same aperture would admit both light 
and air into the simpler forms of human 
dwellings. 

Woman. Man is generic, and includes both 
male and female. The prefix is wif or web, 
the web-man or she who stays at home to 
spin, as distinguished from the we&p-man, 
or him who goes abroad to use the weapon 
of war. Wif-man and wasp-man are the 
words of the Saxon Bible for S. Matt. xix. 4 : 
" In the beginning He made them male land 
female." Compare Spinster. 

Worship, as a noun or verb, is worthship, a 
character or condition of worth, and therefore 
at first meant something far short of paying 
divine honours. Compare the phrase in the 
marriage service of the Church of England : 
" With my body I thee worship," and the 




CURIOUS DERIVATIONS. Ill 

title of mayors of towns, who are called 
"worshipful." 



I EARN. This is an interesting word, 
as being the same as " earn." So 
Spenser : 

" And ever as he rode his heart did earn 
To prove his puissance in battle brave." 

There can be no doubt that earn is de- 
rived from the Saxon aran, (Latin arare, to 
plough), and is connected with the old English 
verb " to ear," meaning to till, whence earth, 
or the ground tilled. The day labourers of 
many parts of England still speak of yearning 
a day's wages. It is beautiful to see how 
the combination of effort and desire has re- 
solved itself into the two forms of earn and 
yearn. The derivation of earth is thus seen 
in Tusser : 

" Such land as ye break up for barley to sow, 
Two earths at the least, ere ye sow it, bestow." 

In other words, plow it twice. 



112 COMMON WORDS. 



?ANY, — Italian zanni, a colloquial 
corruption of Giovanni, — a merry- 
John, or, as we should say, merry- 
Andrew ; a buffoon, a fool. 




FINIS. 



CHISWICK PRESS : — WBITTTNGHAM AND WILKINS, 
TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE. 



A NOTICE OF CERTAIN CRITICISMS ON 

COMMON WORDS WITH CURIOUS 
DERIVATIONS." 

BY THE AUTHOR. 




*S this little work has been far more extensively 
noticed by the press than I had anticipated from 
its small compass and unpretending character, I 
wish to say a few words on Critiques which 
have appeared in some of the more prominent Literary Pe- 
riodicals of the day, in vindication of it against a certain 
amount of what I must consider very shallow and pretentious 
criticism. 

To those who have fairly examined this humble contribu- 
tion to a science daily growing in popularity I return my 
hearty thanks. To more superficial critics I reply as follows. 
The writer in The Athenceum of the 18th of November last, 
says, that my work is ei not often incorrect," but that there 
" are a few instances" in which he thinks the author " mistaken 
as to the origin of the words." 

As instances of such alleged errors he selects two words, 
" decoy," and " calamity." 
Let us take them separately. 

The reviewer first quotes my account of the origin of 
" decoy" as follows :— 

i 



114 A NOTICE OE CRITICISMS. 

" The c coy J in this word is the same, in Etymology, as the 
old adjective 'coy, 7 from quietus, modest, retiring, shy. The 
root meaning, to soothe or quiet, to speak peace ; its derived 
meaning, to speak peace where there is no peace ; to allure 
into danger or the snare, as distinguished from more open, 
violent, or noisy methods of attack and capture." 

In the work itself, the account thus proceeds : " In snaring 
birds, the decoy was a bird of the same species as those 
hunted, which was tamed and trained to lure them into a 
snare, or within shot 5 but this is an application of the term, 
not the essence of it, which is, ensnarement by quiet decep- 
tion." 

Against this the reviewer sets Wedgwood's peculiar conjec- 
ture that the first syllable of " decoy" is the word" duck." What 
the second syllable is does not at the first appear ; however, 
nothing dispirited in the sport, Wedgwood beats every bush, 
and finds, to his satisfaction, that kooi in Dutch means a cage. 
So he presents us with the easy and edifying combination of 
" duck-kooi" for " decoy." 

Against this I protest. Every English scholar knows that 
the word " coy," which, with the old French quoy, and more 
plainly still the modern Erench coi, still, quiet, snug, the 
Italian cheto, and the Spanish quedo, is derived from the Latin 
quies and quietus, was not only an adjective, but a verb, and as a 
verb occurred in composition. So " decoy" is only a later, and 
in its sense stronger form of " coy" in composition than "acoy 5" 
which is used by Chaucer. " He nist how best her hart for 
to acoie;" a reading considered, it is true, doubtful by some, 
but borne out, so far as the word " acoie " is concerned, by 
another passage ; " which all his paines might acoie." How 
Wedgwood gets over "acoy" I know not, but, as "decoy," 
according to his system, is for "Dwc&-kooi," possibly "acoy" 
may be for " Quack-kooi." 

To take the second instance given by The Athenceum critic, 
he savs, " We object to the derivation of calamity from 
calamus, and the forced explanation of it as ' a blighting 
influence upon the grain.'" Yet this derivation comes to us 
with a considerable tradition in its favour 5 and, in my opinion, 



A NOTICE OF CRITICISMS. 115 

will then only be justly regarded as exploded when another 
and a better account shall have passed into general acceptance. 
Donatus, in his notes on Terence, makes the observation, that 
calamitas was a sort of synonym for hail, because hail beats 
down the calamos, or corn-stalks. If the derivation be far- 
fetched, as perhaps it is, it was at least maintained by Bacon, 
who, in his Natural History, says, that " calamity" is derived 
from calamus, and that a drought is, in the strict sense of the 
w^ord, a calamity, " when the corn cannot get out of the 
stalke." It is this force of the word which I have broadly 
expressed as " a blighting influence upon the grain." If Bacon 
is far-fetched and wrong here, by all means let him, Chancellor 
as he was, be put out of court ; but surely the order for 
his removal ought to be something better than a " we object" 
from a reviewer. 

Let us now turn to The Reader. This critic begins, " Mr. 
Smith's theory that many, or indeed most, of the English words 
which come from the Latin have been derived immediately from 
the Erench, is very ill-founded," Mr. Critic, suffer me to say 
that the number of these words is very large. You say, " The 
Romans must have introduced their language into the Province 
of Britain/' Of course they did; or rather into its several 
Provinces. But the Britons were, in time, succeeded by a 
Saxon and Danish population, to whom Latin was an un- 
known tongue. It is true that these latter, in the course of 
time, learnt it after a fashion; but a classical academy in 
which the boys should be Saxons and the masters ancient 
Britons, would, if it formed the subject of an " historical 
picture," excite no little surprise among the more intelligent 
members of a " hanging committee." The Latin teachers of 
the Saxons were not British serfs, but Italian priests — the 
Christian Church. But imagine anything you please about 
the ancient Britons, is it an " ill-founded theory" that, in the 
eleventh century of Christianity, an immense addition of 
words of Latin origin, and a higher stamp, was imported into 
England by those Norman conquerors who spoke a Romance 
language ? to say nothing of the Court of King Edward the 
Confessor, who was a Norman by education. But something 



116 A NOTICE OF CRITICISMS. 

equally wonderful has to be told. " This propensity," — con- 
tinues the critic, — meaning the insane propensity—" to derive 
£ many 5 (to say nothing about c most') English words directly 
from the French, leads him (the author) into curious mistakes ; 
thus he derives bombast from bombax, cotton, whereas 
fiofjLpsaj and /36/*/3oc are as old as Homer," — (very true, but 
what then ? I have heard of some things being " as old as 
Adam," which would give them a yet higher antiquity), — " and 
/36/x(3a^ and fiofjificiZu) occur in Aristophanes." Do they 
really ? Well, it is not altogether wonderful, when we consider 
how many remarkable words do, to use the singularly lady -like 
expression of this reviewer, " occur" in these somewhat 
pungent Plays. But again I ask, what then ? When he has 
emptied his magazine of such words as pofijSog and j36/z/3a£, 
humming sounds and mock plaudits of theatres, (expressions 
remarkably synonymous with each other,and with " bombast," 
no doubt, if one could only see it), the case remains where it 
was. Let him take up his Lexicon, and start afresh, not 
from (36fxj3a^ a theatrical outburst, which has nothing what- 
ever to do with the question, but /36/z/3v£, a silk- worm. From 
this he will get to the Latin bombyx, the low Latin bombax, 
and bombasium, for cotton — the French bombasin, and the 
English " bombazine " and " bombast." Let him not rush, head 
in air > with eyes complacently shut to eve^ thing on this side 
of Homer and Aristophanes, and so, sprawling headlong over 
bales of bombast lying about his feet 5 for bombast, if he had 
read English literature, he must have known meant, literally, 
cotton. He could not, of course, be expected, in his ignorance 
of the word, to appreciate the epithet of Shakespeare given 
in my quotation, 

" Evades them with a bombast circumstance 
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war ; " 

but perhaps he will more readily understand " bombast" to 
mean cotton-padding in the following extract given in his 
Select Glossary, by Archbishop Trench, from Stubbe's Anatomy 
of Abuses, " Doublets stuffed with four, five, or six pounds o\ 
bombast at the least. " 



A NOTICE OF CRITICISMS. 117 

To the critic of The Spectator I have to express my sin- 
cere thanks, for pointing out a misprint, under the word 
" overture," which I had overlooked. Instead of operire, 
opertus, to open, it should have been aperire, apertus. That 
aperire in Latin means to open, and operire, to shut, are in- 
disputable truths. If anything detracts from their im- 
portance it is that the distinction is perfectly familiar to 
every young gentleman who, at a Classical Academy, may have 
enjoyed the benefit of " a quarter's Latin 5 " so this piece of 
advanced erudition need not have been so ostentatiously 
paraded. A less dyspeptic reviewer would have charitably 
corrected it by the next line, in which " covert " is derived 
from co-operire, co-opertus. 

But here my obligation to him ceases, at least on the score 
of any information he has afforded me. 

On my remarks on the words " agony " and " adore," he 
says that they are " funny reasoning." I cannot answer the 
charge of facetiousness in the abstract ; but I certainly think 
it noteworthy in the word " agony," that whereas the meaning 
of dyojv in the Greek was objective, a contest, or the place of 
it, — with us the exclusive usage of agony is subjective, namely, 
great pain. And I ventured to throw out, in the form of a 
question only, without insisting upon the idea, " Is there here 
an intimation, undesignedly appearing in human language, of 
a latent persuasion that suffering is nd part essentially of our 
human lot, but something against which we feel that we have 
a sort of natural right to struggle ? " Different minds are 
differently affected by such arguments. Some attribute 
weight to them, others are not so influenced. But I see no- 
thing " funny " about them. 

As to the sense of " adore " being derived better immedi- 
ately from os, oris, the mouth, than from orare, which is of course 
similarly derived, and so making the notion of adoration to be, 
first, homage, as in kissing the hand to an object, and secondly, 
prayer, I think I am not adopting any very " funny ,J mode 
of reasoning. Of course, os, oris, is the root of the word in 
either case 5 and I say that the word adorare undoubtedly had, 
fur at least one of its senses, in classic Latin, that of respectful 



118 A NOTICE OF CRITICISMS. 

salutation, without any stronger sense of worship than is re- 
tained in our old word " worshipful." I am guilty only of 
thinking it more probable that the word changed from the 
sense of salutation to prayer, than from prayer to salutation. 

Next let me inform this reviewer that the deduction of 
y\(x>(j(Ta, the tongue, from y\6eiv,polire, as an obsolete root for 
yXoiog, lubricus, so that, as I have said, the tongue is " the 
glosed member," was assumed by Lennep, and is no " pure 
invention" of mine. I only wish it had been 5 I should have 
been not at all ashamed of it. 

For his objections to " decoy" and " calamity," I refer him to 
what I have already written on these two words. 

His next statement is more respectable, that "impeach" and 
empecher are from impedire, and not, as I have given it, irrtpingere. 

As to " impeach ; ' being derived from impedire, I do not abso- 
lutely deny it; but I confess that I prefer impingere, impactus, to 
impedire, impeditus, for the root of " impeach," and also " dis- 
patch," two words which, on either supposition, are co-com- 
pounds 5 especially when one looks not only at the French 
empdcher, but also at the Italian impacciare. So thinks Dr. C. 
F. Mahn, of Berlin, who in Webster's Dictionary gives imping- 
ere, instead of impedire, as the origin of " impeach," while 
Richardson gives impedire. I find also that Wedgwood sanctions 
this derivation of impingere and dispingere, as given by Diez, for 
" impeach " and " dispatch," impedire and depedire being quite 
ignored. Is it too much to be courteous over these nice points ? 

But there remains one word noticed by this reviewer which 
is peculiarly worthy of consideration, in connection with his 
remarks upon it 5 and here he has been led blindfold into a 
ditch, where I must take an affectionate leave of him. As he 
has made his bed, so he must lie. This happens in the very 
interesting word " reprieve." His derivation of this word is 
a remarkable proof of the fatal tendency of men to allow 
cobblers, especially eminent ones, to go beyond their lasts. 
" Reprieve " is derived from reprobare. It could not be other- 
wise. To suppose that it comes from the French reprendre, 
and the Latin reprehendere, is to believe a sheer impossibility. 
But unfortunately for many of us, critics and compilers of 



A NOTICE OF CRITICISMS. 119 

Dictionaries in particular, Blackstone believed it. If it had 
been only the Spectator it would not have mattered ; but 
Blackstone, in this particular, made about as egregious a 
blunder as ever gained extensive acceptance and belief, on the 
mere ipse dixit of anybody The French language has no 
power to give to reprendre an etymological force absolutely 
wanting in reprehendere ; nor is reprise French for " reprieve," 
as in that case of course it must have been, but repit in its older 
form respit,the Latin respectus, and the English " respite." The 
v of reprieve absolutely requires the b of reprobare, and to derive 
it from reprehendere is /a most serious blunder of Latin scholar- 
ship. Moreover it shows a great want of English scholarship 
— a matter which, together with the transmutations of the 
German, Spanish, and Italian, most etymologists appear to 
me to study far too lightly. Yet the Greek and Latin words are 
wonderfully lighted up by these modern variations. That " re- 
prieve " is the same word, etymologically, as reprove and re- 
proof, is placed beyond question; for, in this now obsolete 
sense, it was used by Chaucer. In the same sense it was used by 
Spenser also, as in the following extract from the Faerie 
Queene, B. iii. c. 6, Collier's edition, just as he used " mieve" for 
move, and " prieve" for prove : — 

" But if the least (sleep) appeared, her eyes she streight 
reprieved ; " 

that is, reproved, wishing to keep awake, not to go to sleep ; in 
which case she might have been said to reprieve them. 

This identifies reprieve, with reprobare, and, with due de- 
ference to Blackstone, detaches it finally from reprehendere. 

So much for the objections of certain reviewers. I hope I 
have said enough to vindicate my derivations of the words in 
question. I have at least endeavoured to meet every specific 
objection to them which has come under my cognizance, 
and I trust that readers will at least give me credit for having 
entitled myself to the condescending and gracious, though 
upon the whole somewhat ungrammatical, commendation of 
the Westminster Revieiv — that of being " now and then some- 
times right." 



VA 



ERRATA, 

Page 29, for " Beigsam" read " Biegsam." 

Page 48, for " Filigrave" raze/ " Filigrane." 

Page 73, for " Operire" read " Aperire." 

Page 73, for " Opertus " read " Apertus." 

Page 79, for " Poma" read" Porno." 

Page 96, /or " Retabi " razd " Utabi." 

Page 103, /or " Bacon" read " Becon," and /or " Sussex' 

read " Suffolk." 
Page 108, /or " Passive " read " Past," 



m^ m ■ ^>^ 



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